


A Royal Affair

by Kiintsugi



Series: A Royal Affair [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Affairs, Endgame Clexa, F/F, Knight Lexa, Queen Clarke, mentions of bellarke but also fuck that shit its just for drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-02-22 23:56:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 46,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23702455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiintsugi/pseuds/Kiintsugi
Summary: “Quiet,” Lexa whispers between kisses. “My soldiers are right outside.”Clarke pulls her lips away from Lexa hand and nips playfully at her fingers. “So dismiss them,” she says, humming another moan as Lexa’s lips continue to trail down her neck.She wants to, gods, she wants to. But doing that is too suspicious. The logical thing to do is to stop. The logical thing to do is to escort Clarke back to the list so that she can watch Bellamy’s joust with Lincoln before anyone notices that they’re gone, that they’re still inside Bellamy’s pavilion. But Lexa isn’t thinking logically, not when Clarke is pressed up against her, squirming and moaning and desperately clawing at her for more.“We should stop,” she says, more to herself than to Clarke, but Clarke isn’t having it. She grabs Lexa’s face and presses their lips together again.“Shut up,” she tells her and Lexa obliges.ORWhen Clarke is sent off to marry the King Bellamy Blake in a political marriage to unite the east and west, she accidently falls for his shield, Lexa, instead.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Series: A Royal Affair [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684315
Comments: 44
Kudos: 370





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be a 20k one shot but it took me 25damn k just to get to the first sex scene so... so much for being an economical writer lol. Anyway, this is my much larger than planned midevil affair fic that i worked way too hard on and involves a lot of Clarke and Lexa just flat out ignoring the fact that she's supposed to marry Bellamy bc well, yall know, fuck that.

* * *

It is through yellow silken curtains so fine that they paint the world in gold that Clarke sets her eyes upon the royal palace for the first time. 

It is a tall, wondrous construct of smooth, silvery stone that looks as if it were harnessed from the moon itself with several massive drum-towers crowned in Iron ramparts and surrounded by a protective veil of curtain stone walls. It sits at the heart of the city, at the top of a small hill that overlooks the port on one side and the market streets on the other and is guarded by magnificently armored soldiers known as The Kingsglaive. 

She can see even through the curtains of her carriage the sheer force of the Kingsglaive presence, their collective numbers marching atop the walls and stationed at every major street corner that leads to the palace. She had been told that the Kingsglaive was an elite force, few in numbers but overwhelming in skill. Clarke can’t help but think that if this number is considered few, then the size of the royal army must be unbelievable. 

Maybe it’s because she’s from a tiny mountain town a fraction the size of the Crown City. Maybe for it’s size, the Kingsglaive is a small force. Maybe there is a more elite group of soldiers within the exclusive force. Either way, she’s blown away by the power exuding from the black armored soldiers of the King’s personal military. 

Their carriage is stopped at the base of the Palace, inspected by these soldiers who peer in through the windows and observe her and her mother within. She can hear them shouting at one another, the press of metal greaves into the cobblestone as they circle her carriage. 

“Aren’t they expecting us?” Clarke asks her mother. “We have a royal escort.” 

“I’m sure everything is fine,” her mother says. 

Clarke’s been told her mother was once very fair and beautiful. She has graying hair that mixes with a soft brown, fine wrinkles, thin lips and dark brown eyes that smile at Clarke in a way that feels like she’s being wrapped in her mother’s arms whenever she looks at her. At least they used to. If the rumors were to be believed, and her mother as beautiful as they say, she can only hope she herself has a fraction of that beauty. 

Clarke doesn’t look anything like her mother. She’s her father’s child to her very core. She inherited his round face, his dimpled chin, his ocean blue eyes, and the blonde hair of his mother. She looks so much like her father that if she had inherited his hair as well, they might have been the same person. Her mother used to call the twins, but after his death, her mother could hardly stand to look at her. 

Clarke wonders if that’s the reason she’s being sent so far from home; so that her mother doesn’t have to look at her anymore. 

The carriage draws forward again and her mother smiles something hollow and empty, the same smile she’s seen for five years now. “See, honey,” she says. “Everything is just as it’s supposed to be.” 

Just as it’s supposed to be. 

If things were just as they were supposed to be, her father would still be alive. If things were just as they were supposed to be, she wouldn’t be sent halfway across the realm to marry a man she’s never met. She’d be married to Lord Jaha’s son, Wells. If things were as they were supposed to be, Wells would still be alive too. But things are not as they’re supposed to be. Things are a mess, and they’ve been a mess for as long as she can remember. 

The carriage draws up the path to the castle, through the sheet walls and gigantic iron wrought, double oaken doors and Clarke watches through her golden view as the palace slowly begins to unfurl itself around her. There are alley cats and children at play, guards standing sentinel and guards on patrol, gardens and inner yards more beautiful than she could ever imagine. Spring is in full bloom here, a stark contrast to the windy rock town Clarke’s mother and her new husband Lord Marcus Kane preside over. 

Eventually, the carriage comes to a stop again, and this time Clarke knows that their journey has ended and she will never again take the three week trek back to her home in Aerofall. Not without the permission and the blessing of the King. 

The king waits for them just outside and Clarke can see his regal form through the silken curtains of her carriage. He stands tall and proud with his hands clasp behind his back and his gold dipped antler crown placed upon his head. She can see from between the curtains that he wears a royal blue doublet with a golden phoenix embroidered on the chest and a paludamentum of glimmering gold drapes down his right shoulder. He is handsome by all accounts, muscular and strong with unruly curls, soft brown eyes and his smile is as genuine and pure as flowerbuds in the spring. 

He’s accompanied by two soldiers of the Kingsglaive. Both dressed in all black though only partially armored, with black armored greaves and vambraces, one with a pauldren with a paludamentum of silver-white attached, the other without. The one with the silver-white cloak is a woman, and although Clarke can’t see her features well from within the carriage, she is both pleased and surprised to see women not only among the King’s royal forces, but trusted enough to stand behind him. 

She emerges from the carriage after her mother and the sun beats hot and heavy against her skin. She squints into the bright spring light, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and just as things begin to come into focus, the King dips into a deep bow before her. 

“Welcome, fair Ladies of House Griffin and Kane,” the King greets with a jubilant smile that she immediately detests. “I hope your travels were not to weary.” 

“Three weeks in a carriage is well worth the chance to see you, your Highness,” her mother says. “Don’t you agree, Clarke?” 

His gleaming smile reaches her and she does her best to return it with a smile of her own as she dips into a curtsey and says, “Whole heartedly, mother.” 

Bellamy laces his finger behind his back again and turns to look up at the castle behind him. He’s still smiling, and Clarke still hates it. “Stunning architectural work,” he notates. “I’ve lived here five years and still, I can’t get over how beautiful Elysia is. It was my hope that I would be able to share with you all of my favorite things this city has to offer, but seeing your beauty in person, Lady Clarke, I think my new favorite thing might just be you.” 

“A compliment so fine is not deserving of a woman such as myself,” Clarke says. 

“Nonsense,” Bellamy says. “Your modesty is unnecessary. Please, treat me as if I were a simple man of your own town.” 

He tells her this, but Clarke feels as though doing so might place her in a position she’d rather not find herself in. So, she smiles again, nods her head and agrees with a modest, “As you wish.” 

He turns to his guards one by one and says, “I had thought to take you to the gardens upon your arrival. We have a wonderful selection of flora from the Elyisan Fields in bloom and it is quite a stunning sight. However, I have been informed that you are both probably much more interested in a bath. I would take you there myself, but duty calls and I cannot be everywhere I would like to be, so I have brought two guards along with me to show you to the chambers you will be staying during your time here. There are tubs waiting for you, both still hot and fragranced with oil.” 

“A bath sounds wonderful, your Highness,” her mother says. 

“Good, then Lincoln here will show you to your chambers, Lady Kane. He is a fine soldier and a good man. And Lady Clarke,” he says, turning to Clarke with that flowery smile of his. “I’d like to introduce you to Lexa, the Shield of the King. I’ve asked her to escort you on my behalf.” 

Clarke finally peels her eyes away from Bellamy and looks in the direction of the woman behind him. She’s fierce and stoic, hard as stone with eyes alight with fire. Her dark brown hair is wild and messy with a few stray thin braids cascading over her shoulders. She’s a mess of hard lines and sharp features, and just looking at her makes Clarke think she might be made of sharpened steel. She doesn’t smile at Clarke, not the way Bellamy does, and Clarke immediately finds herself searching the King for the kindness he has shown her. Lexa’s presence is overwhelming, a pressure she can’t describe as anything other than deep and penetrative. 

Bellamy slaps Lexa on the back and laughs. “She’s not as scary as she looks,” he says. “I promise you; I would never assign someone to your side who did not ensure your absolute safety.” 

“Your Highness—” She begins, but the King waves his hands and cuts her off. 

“Please, ‘Your Highness’ is for my subjects and you are to be my Queen. Call me Bellamy.” 

“Assigning me your Shield seems a bit... extreme. I would be perfectly happy following my mother so that you remain protected.” 

“I won’t have it,” he says. “This is your first day here and as I cannot be with you until this evening, only the best will do in my stead. That is Lexa. She is the finest soldier in all of Arkadia, loyal and true to the throne, and a good friend. There is no one finer and more deserving to protect you.” 

Clarke doesn’t really feel like she needs protection, but she doesn’t argue with her soon to be husband. He is the King after all, and she is merely his politically selected consort. And without further resistance from Clarke, Bellamy bids them farewell for now, promises to see them at the feast in their honor tonight, and disappears within the palace. 

Clarke’s mother embraces her in a tight, hasty hug. She squeezes her arms around Clarke’s body and Clarke revels in the familiarity of her mother’s touch, the safety of her hold. For a moment, they’re back in Aerofall. She can smell the fires in the hearth in her home, feel the tremendous, howling winds, smell the water that falls from the Phoenixpeaks’s mountains she spent her childhood scaling and exploring. For a moment, it’s as if her mother’s hold is not her mother at all, but her father instead. But her mother pulls away and the feelings of home are ripped from Clarke in the most painful of ways, flashes of her father’s smiling face invading her mind as she tries to distinguish the dreams from reality. 

“I’ll see you at dinner,” her mother says. “And remember… your best behavior, Clarke. Nothing less.” 

Clarke purses her lips and bobs her head. “Okay,” she agrees without promise. 

“Nothing less,” her mother repeats, and then she turns and allows the guards whose names’ she’s already forgotten to escort her mother away. 

She’s left alone with Lexa and she gets little more than a curt nod from the armored woman to indicate that she should follow her through the castle to her chambers. She’s guided by her silent soldier to one of the many drum towers and led up a serpentine staircase that spirals up and up. They travel several floors before Lexa finally selects and opens an oaken door and then takes her down the hall past at least four other rooms before stopping. 

Clarke is relatively winded by the end of it, but when she looks at Lexa it’s as if the woman hasn’t even traveled ten paces, let alone crossed the castle and trudged up what feels like an endless staircase. 

“Your room, my Lady,” she says, stepping to the side of the door. 

“Thanks,” Clarke mutters, still somewhat breathless. 

“Of course, my Lady,” Lexa says without hesitation. “I will return in a few hours to escort you to the great hall. If you need anything before then, your handmaiden’s chambers are at the end of the hall and they will be happy to oblige any request you have.” 

Clarke peers down the long hall to the door Lexa indicates too with one of her long, slender fingers. “Thank you,” she says again. 

Lexa’s brows contract as if unused to hearing gratitude for her work. “It’s my job to service the crown, my Lady. No need to thank me.” 

Clarke purses her lips and nods. She can’t help but comply with Lexa’s words, feeling trapped in the strange exhuming pressure that radiates from Lexa and through Clarke’s body. It’s a strange feeling, something the like’s she’s never felt before, and she isn’t entirely certain if she is comfortable with it yet. 

There’s an awkward, pregnant pause that fills the hall and Lexa licks her lips and looks Clarke up and down in one graceful sweep. Then, before Clarke has a chance to question it, she asks, “Is there anything else, my Lady? Or am I free to go?” 

“Oh,” she realizes. “Yes. Please, go,” Clarke urges, suddenly realizing she had yet to dismiss Lexa from her service. 

Lexa nods, and Clarke thinks for just a second that maybe her lips had twitched into the barest hint of a smile through the stony stoicism and hardened resolve. “Then I will see you in a few hours.” 

♕

Clarke takes a long, much needed bath in the comfort and privacy of her assigned chambers. 

Her chambers are nothing to rave about. It’s small with ornate furniture, a large four poster bed with a feather mattress that’s free of fleas and two squishy chairs that sit before the modest hearth in the corner of the room. There’s a small bookshelf with a handful of books, mostly stories of past kings, but it remains rather unfilled and empty. There’s also a fur pelt laid out on the floor that Clarke thinks belonged to a bear given its size, but she isn’t entirely sure. 

Her bath is small, warmed over hot embers of a long dying fire and scented with oils, and Clarke spends most of her time within the waters simply letting her sore muscles relax. The trip to the castle was grueling and difficult, and Clarke’s body is unused to the strain of three weeks' worth of cramped and uncomfortable travel. She does scrub the weeks away eventually, rubbing the muck and sweat from her skin as best she can so that she might be more presentable to her King tonight. 

Her fingers are starting to prune by the time she finishes cleaning herself and the water has long tuned luke. But still, she sits within the tub, leaning her head back against the rim and looking at the ceiling. She doesn’t want to get out. She doesn’t want to dress herself and make herself presentable for the King. She doesn’t want to feast or party or dance. All she wants to do is sit here in this tub, with no responsibility and no weight of her house on her shoulders. 

But she doesn’t get to do that. Clarke is the only child of the Griffin House, and while many assets of her father’s wealth and status belong to her mother and Marcus Kane now, the alliances the House of Griffin can pull in for any man are too many to take lightly. Clarke is a tool – like every other daughter – meant to bring power to the Houses and then of which they serve. In the end, they all serve the King anyway. So why is she letting herself get so beaten down over this? 

Her hands slap the surface of the water and she forces herself to sit upright. Lexa will here soon, she almost certain of it, and she won’t be caught in a sour state by the one person in the world who’s most loyal to the king. Especially when today is supposed to one of the happiest of her life because of the king. How would she explain herself? Could she explain herself? Would Lexa even believe her? 

She climbs out of the tub and finds the warm air of her room to be warmer than the state of the water she had been sitting in. She shrugs at this and grabs a cloth towel that’s been draped over one of the squishy chairs and pats herself dry. Then she looks at the dress that’s been laid on out on the bed for her to wear tonight. 

A knock comes from her door and Clarke, still in the nude, turns to face it as the door swings slowly open. Lexa is standing there in the doorway, her ears turning pink at the sight of Clarke. 

She hurriedly shuts her eyes, drops her head so that she’s facing the floor and stammers out, “I-I’m terribly sorry, my Lady. I presumed you would be ready. I’ll fetch your handmaidens to help you dress.” 

And the door slams shut again. 

♕

The king has spared no expense in welcoming Clarke and her mother to his court. 

The hall is heavy with the scents of feasting. Meats roasted in a crust of garlic and herbs, mashed squashes swimming in butter and even sweet breads; a delicacy not often found in Aerofall, fill the tables from end to end. The stone walls are decorated in banners of sunset orange with the symbol of Bellamy’s royal crest, a rising phoenix, embroidered upon them in deep red. Next to them, embroidered in gold upon banners of dark blue, is the maned lion of House Griffin. 

There are four tables in the hall, two on each side with a large divide between them, and these four tables are overlooked by the high table of command where King Bellamy and his royal court sit side by side. There is laughing and cheering and playful shoving, hooting and singing, all mixed with the clamor of cups and knives and forks and plates that resonate so loudly that when Lexa pushes open the doors for Clarke and her mother to enter the feast, Bellamy must stand from his place at the high table and quiet the crowds. 

“You arrive at last, my Ladies,” he says over the still quieting crowd, his arms outstretched. There are two chairs open on either side of him – one for Clarke and one for her mother – and he gestures for each of them to take their place beside him as his royal guests. “Come, eat. The night is young and the celebrations have only just begun!” 

Clarke emulates her mother’s lead and strides down the great hall with long and elegant steps. They separate in front of the high table, her mother flanking right to sit upon Bellamy’s left, leaving Clarke to take the seat at Bellamy’s right. She notices there is another empty seat next to this one, and it takes only a few moments for Lexa to fill the void. 

Bellamy, still dressed in his dark blue doublet, has removed the crown from his head and sits among his court with a shameless, casual cadence. His laugh echoes across the great hall and his smile lights the room and Clarke can’t help but wonder what his life was like before coming to take the throne. 

She knows his nicknames and his titles, everyone in the realm does. Bellamy the Shieldbreaker, The Sentinel King. But nothing about Bellamy strikes her as the keeper of those names. He’s too light and airy, too filled with joy and easily amused. How this man broke through the last defenses of the Mad King Cage and came to take his throne, Clarke simply cannot see. She supposes this must make her a lucky woman; to be betrothed to a man not plagued by the cruelties of war, to marry not only a King, but a good and fair King. 

But Clarke isn’t so sure that luck is on her side. To presume anything about this man she knows nothing about is dangerous. And she thinks to herself as she watches him fill his horn with Ale, that first impressions mean nothing when you’re expected to spend the rest of your life with someone. 

Still, where Bellamy leave a wake of calm and joy to her left, Lexa is unyielding in her presence of rigidity to her right. She’s changed out of her armor now, but is still dressed in the black colors of the Kingsglaive, tunic, overcoat and all. Somehow Clarke finds this more intimidating than when she was armed and armored, and she can’t stop herself from shivering at the thought of the ferocity that was the King’s Shield next to her. 

“Wine or Ale, my Lady Clarke,” Bellamy asks her. 

Clarke does her best to smile graciously and says, “Whichever you think is most fitting for a feast such as this.” 

Bellamy smiles and with a wave of his hand her cup is with the red liquid from a jug held by a serving girl behind them. “A fine wine for a fine woman it is then.” 

Next to her Lexa waves over a different serving girl and has her horn filled with Ale and begins to pile her plate with meat herself while Bellamy meanwhile insists that the serving staff fill Clarke’s own plate with the finest cuts and servings from the tables. She’s given some of everything, and Bellamy encourages her to taste it all, promising that the cooks in the kitchen are eager to learn what is and is not a hit with their soon to be queen. 

Clarke’s not accustomed to being cared for in such an exceptional manner. Even as a lady of a high house, the extravagancies of royalty far outclass the life she is accustomed. She finds herself looking to her mother for certainty, but only gets a pleased smile from her seat on Bellamy’s other side. Bellamy is after all, acting the part of a perfect gentleman. Of course, her mother would see only that and not the pleading discomfort she feels sandwiched between a man too relaxed and a woman too rigid. 

For a while Bellamy dotes on her and Lexa ignores her – she's been doing that almost exclusively since she came back to retrieve them after spotting her naked. He asks her what she thinks of every dish, ensures that her cup is never empty, and compliments her liberally in a flashy show of the king’s power and reputation. He also makes sure to check in on her mother with surprising frequency and uses her to spark conversations that Clarke would have otherwise struggled to come up with on her own. 

“I’ve never been to Aerofall,” he admits as the feasting begins to die down and drunken dancing beings to commence in the spaces between the tables. “Though we did march through the pass during the war. It must be an interesting life to lead in the mountains.” 

“It has it’s challenges,” Clarke’s mother says. “And Aerofall is nothing compared to the Arkadian capital.” 

“Well,” he says, “I certainly don’t want to neglect my future family in the west. Perhaps a trip can be organized and you can show me what it’s like there.” He talking to Clarke now and she nods at his request without much thought. 

“Your Highness, a trip that far west without purpose—” Lexa beings, having clearly heard the entire conversation despite remaining resolutely silent this entire time. 

“A trip to visit the family of my Queen is not without purpose, Lexa,” Bellamy says. “Besides, I'm sure there are those to the west who would like a chance to meet their King. But, that is a ways off. There’s no point discussing such things seriously today. Lady Clarke, would you care to dance?” 

She wants to say no, but she was raised and trained for this and everyone, even Lexa, seem to be looking at her with some variation of an expectant gaze. So, she offers him her hand and he guides her around the table and into the drunken crowds and twirls her around with a flick of his wrist that leaves her breathless. 

She allows herself to be swept around the floor, spinning and turning to the cues of the music, listening as Bellamy compliments her graceful dancing skills. For the most part she keeps her eyes on the man that is to be her husband, and tries with all her might to let down the walls she had built after Wells’ and her had father died. She tells herself in her head, over and over, how luck she is. How special she should feel. But she doesn’t know this man and her mantas feel hollow inside. 

Her gaze begins to wander over Bellamy’s shoulder as the song they dance to reaches its climatic end. Her mother is watching them dance, her smile bright and wide and Clarke can see the approval clear as day on her aged features as the song ends and Bellamy releases her; the crowds breaking into applause and drunken hooping. Even Lexa is applauding their dance, and Clarke can’t help but smile at the sight of the terrifying woman smiling at them. 

Bellamy gives her a gracious bow, says “thank you for the dance, my Lady,” and offers her his hand to guide her back to the tables so that he might dance with her mother. 

With Bellamy and her mother on the floor, Clarke is left to sit awkwardly between two empty chair and Lexa, the only person left at the table who’s name she knows who has apparently only has two modes; angry soldier and whatever it takes to placate a King’s ego. 

She drinks her wine and watches her mother dance. She’s much more graceful than Clarke and Clarke thinks back to all the times she watched her father dance with her mother in the halls of the Aerofall. She was always so happy in the motion of dance, and Clarke remembers again that smile she used to have that filled a room with warmth. 

“You dance well, my Lady,” Lexa says suddenly, jerking Clarke from her stupor. 

Clarke smiles at Lexa who does little more than give her a sidelonged glance in return and says, “My father taught me when I was young.” 

“Your father must have been a great man,” Lexa says. 

Clarke swallows the stones damming her throat and says, “He was.” 

“It’s a shame he isn’t here to see his daughter dancing with the King. I’m sure it’s a dream of many men to see their daughter wed to a man as noble and fine as his Highness.” 

Clarke wants to scoff, remembering all the times she used to dance with Wells and the way her father’s eyes used to come to life with pride and love. She wants to tell her, “if my father were alive, I wouldn’t be here at all,” but she doesn’t. She simply laughs at Lexa’s remark as if she’s made some sort of joke because, really, her entire life feels like one big joke. 

“What do you know about my father?” 

Lexa purses her lips and drinks from her horn, taking her time to select her words before she settles on, “I don’t presume to know him, my Lady. But I have heard many stories of his bravery and skill.” 

Somehow, Lexa’s honesty here makes her feel better. Somehow, she almost feels bad for the hostility she’s shown to the woman who has done nothing wrong. But her father, and this... this entire situation... they’re sore spots for Clarke and she doesn’t want to talk about them any more than she absolutely has to. Especially now that all of this is happening and she has no control or even a semblance of normalcy in what her life is about to become. 

“Why aren’t you dancing?” Clarke asks Lexa as other members of the high table shuffle drunken and happy down onto the floor. 

“Because it is my duty to remain vigilant so that his Highness does not have to, Lady Clarke.” 

She turns her attention back to the dance as it reaches its end, this song far less climactic than the previous, and Lexa does the same. They applaud the King much like they had with the last dance, and Bellamy again bows before his dance partner in a show of thanks and gratitude. Clarke notices her mother almost looks young again, as if the weight of her father’s death was finally lifted – if only for a moment – from her aged shoulders. 

She’s sees her mother again, and Clarke purses her lips and drowns herself in wine at the sight of someone breaking through the sheets of ice that have become her mother’s walls. 

She waves over the serving girl with the wine and has her cup filled so that she might drain it again and watches as her mother is guided by the arm by a chivalrous King back to her seat. 

“You mother dances as well as you,” he says, as he approaches the table. “Like mother like daughter, I suppose.” 

Clarke swallows more wine and watches through the corner of her eyes as her mother seats herself again. _Best behavior,_ she hears her mother’s voice echo in her head, _nothing less,_ and she forces herself to smile politely at Bellamy’s compliments. 

He presses his palms into the table and leans forward, still smiling that springtime smile of his. “I can’t persuade you to come down and join me again, can I?” 

Clarke sees both her mother and Lexa staring at her now. Her mother directly and Lexa through that sidelonged look of hers. She knows she should say yes, but she struggles to find the words. So instead, she swallows back more wine and looks for an out. “I’d like to see you dance with Lexa,” Clarke says. “She’s the only one not enjoying the party you’ve thrown.” 

Lexa scowls something fierce and horrifying and Bellamy balks with laughter. “The only dancing Lexa does is with a sword and a dead man walking,” he explains then leans forward even more to whisper loud enough for Lexa to hear and says, “Don’t tell her I said this, but she’s a great old stick in the mud. No fun at all.” He smiles innocently at Lexa and Lexa scoffs, her arms crossing over her chest when he laughs again. “See?” 

Finding herself amused, Clarke laughs too and this makes Bellamy smile and grab Lexa’s hands and dramatically say, “Dance with me, Lexa.” 

Lexa yanks her hand as if she has just touched fire and says, “I’d rather not.” 

“If not with me, then, perhaps with my Lady?” He gestures to Clarke with a playful wiggle of his eyebrows and Clarke watches in horror as Lexa exhales with defeat and pushes to her feet. 

“As you wish, your Highness.” 

Lexa sticks out her arm, offering it awkwardly to Clarke and without much choice, Clarke obliges her. 

She is again led down to the floor, this time by someone far too rigid and uncomfortable to have any sense of grace. A new song begins and Lexa snakes one hand around her waist and takes her hand with the other, then she inhales a counted breath, exhales sharply, and they’re off. 

Clarke is swept off her feet, guided by a gentle yet firm hand at her back and strong, sure footing to guide them. Each step and turn feels deliberate and smooth and when Lexa spins her around, she feels the whole world turn with her. Her stomach finds itself in knots and her eyes search Lexa fleetingly for something to ground her again, but just as she finds Lexa’s eyes, they turn again, separate. Lexa twists on her heels and Clarke follows by doing the same, and then they’re touching again, Lexa pulling her close, following the cues of a dance Clarke has never taken before but everyone around seems to know – Lexa included. 

Their steps go fast and then slow, spinning in a circlet around the floor and Clarke isn’t even sure her feet are touching the ground anymore. All she can do is look at Lexa, whose eyes are alight with fire, who counts the steps under her breath. She thinks for a moment this is what her mother feels when she dances with her father and then as soon as the thought is brought to her mind, she spinning again and losing herself all over again. 

And then its over; Clarke’s feet find purchase on the stony floor, her heart catches up to her, her mind clears from the fog that has formed in her mind, and Lexa is letting her go. 

♕

Clarke can’t stop thinking about her dance with Lexa and it’s driving her mad. 

She’s walking with her mother through one of the inner yards, listening to her comment on the quality of the yard work and the garden staff and how beautifully different Elysia is from Aerofall, but even as her mother spots a tough looking alley cat about to pounce on a small yellow bird, Clarke’s attention is still split between here and last night. 

Bellamy had been pleasingly shocked by Lexa’s ability to dance, proclaiming loudly in the halls how Lexa had been ‘holding out on him all these years’. He, of course, jokingly asked who of the two was the better dance partner, and Clarke answered the way she knew she was expected to answer because, on a technical level, Bellamy was the superior dancer. She hadn’t need to lie. However, Clarke couldn’t help but feel as if she had. There was something about the way Lexa held her, the way she guided her through the steps, that left Clarke absolutely breathless. And Clarke has spent every moment since trying to make sense of it. 

She supposes this is why she asked her mother to walk with her to the gardens. Her mother loves to dance, and until now, Clarke never really understood it. Dancing feels like an obligation, a show, a way to please a man trying to please her. To her, the steps feel too strict, movements too confined, to ever be something that could be considered entertaining or fun. She can’t be herself when she dances with a man, she has to be a proper lady, and that always takes the fun out of it. 

But her mother was always different from her. She can remember all the times her mother would tell her how wonderful it would feel to dance with her husband one day. How practicing her gait, her twirls, her steps, would all lead to feeling the most wonderful feeling in the realm. 

“Look at that,” her mother says in awe. “The cat got it.” 

Across the inner yard, the cat is now prancing proudly with a bird in its mouth. 

“So it did,” Clarke muses, trying her best to stay attentive. It's only a matter of time before her mother returns to her husband in Aerofall, and Clarke knows she should be soaking up all the time she can manage with her last tie to home. Her mind, however, has different plans. And Clarke finds herself losing interest yet again in her mother’s words and drifting back to her memories of her dance with Lexa. 

But why Lexa? 

Why not the King? 

It’s the dream of every girl in the realm to marry a knight or a king, just like the stories. And Bellamy is not only a king, but a knight as well. And he’s handsome to boot. And kind. And... Clarke can come up with so many words to describe all the ways she’s the luckiest woman in the realm, but that doesn't change the fact that it’s her dance with Lexa that runs rampant in her mind and sends her heart aflutter, not the king. 

“How many cats do you think live here?” her mother ponders aloud. 

Clarke shrugs. “I saw three this morning on the walk down.” 

“I wonder if they’re strays or not.” 

Clarke doesn’t know and she shrugs again, her mind still absent from the present. 

They take a seat on a stone bench in the yard near a bushel of flowers trimmed into perfect hedges and her mother looks at her long and hard. “Is everything alright, Clarke?” 

“I keep thinking about last night,” Clarke admits. 

Her mother gives her a pleased smile and says, “Bellamy is quite the entertainer. And a great dancer to boot.” 

Clarke’s lips purse into a hard line and she nods absent mindedly, thinking about the way her fingers are still tingling from the loss of Lexa’s touch. She squeezes her hand into a loose fist and then opens it again. She does this again and again, trying to shake the ghost of a memory away. 

“Mother,” she tries, pausing to think about what she’s about to say. It’s hard to pick the right words, to express what’s happened in a way that causes neither alarm nor concern. But Clarke has to ask someone, and the only person in the palace she can talk to is her mother. “What made dancing with dad so special? What did you feel?” 

Her mother’s eyes glisten as she smiles and she asks, “Did you feel it Clarke? The way the world stops turning?” 

Clarke hesitates, then bobs her chin. “I think so,” she says. “But, what does it mean?” 

“It means you’re to have a fine and fair husband, Clarke. And I truly believe you will be very happy here.” 

Clarke nods again and decides against telling her mother that it wasn’t Bellamy she felt this strange feeling towards. 

♕

The castle is more than the scope of Clarke’s wildest dreams, and she quickly finds herself lost beyond reason within its twisting halls and maze-like passages. 

She wanders inside and outside and then inside again, each passage taking her anywhere but somewhere familiar to her. And after winding up outside for what feels like the hundredth time, Clarke heaves a defeated sigh and wanders across the outdoor walkway. 

She appears to have come out onto a balcony of some sort that overlooks the sparring yard, the ringing of steel filling her ears as her wanderings come to a stop. She turns to look down into the yard, her arms folding over the stone worked railing. 

There’s about two dozen soldiers in the yard, most of them practicing form or sparing with blunt swords. They were fully armored, or, most of them were, with a few men brave enough to face blunt steel with flesh walking around bloody and shirtless. Every one of them walking without a shirt is branded on their right arm with the same tattoo, something black and intricate that Clarke can’t quite make out from her perch above but she thinks it might be the insignia of the Kingsglaive and that makes her wonder if Lexa too, is marked with ink. 

She shakes her head, pushing away the thoughts of Lexa she’s fought so hard to ignore and focuses on the sparring men below. 

“Here for the show?” a voice asks from behind, and Clarke whirls on her heels to meet it. 

A woman stands there, lithe and young, leaning one hand on the stone railing and the other pressed into an iron cane. She’s got a tangle of dark hair that’s kept in a braid that hangs down the back of her small, muscled frame and her tunic is stained with soot. 

“What show?” Clarke asks, looking back into the yard when the woman before her does. 

“For the royal ass kicking,” she says, gleaming. “When the King and his Shield spar.” 

Just as the woman says this, iron wrought oaken doors swing open, and Bellamy and Lexa appear from the other side. Where Bellamy strolls leisurely into the yard, Lexa marches behind him with definitive purpose. And while Bellamy takes the lead, it is clear that in this yard, Lexa is the one in charge. The way the rest of the Kingsglaive stiffen and straighten in her presence, the way they pause what they’re doing and salute her as she passes. It’s very obvious that she is an immensely respected soldier, and she has the unwavering loyalty of the rest of the Kingsglaive in her grasp. 

Bellamy looks around the yard with his hands on his hips while Lexa retrieves the sparring weapons and then up at the balcony. “Lady Clarke,” he realizes with a grin. “You’re here!” 

Clarke smiles at this and then the King turns to the woman beside her. 

“I’m not at all surprised to see you, Raven.” 

The woman called Raven laughs at this and yells down into the yard, “You know this is my favorite form of entertainment!” 

Lexa grabs two blunt swords from a barrel and throws one to Bellamy, who catches it with flourish. The other soldiers in the yard back away, forming a rough circle around the King and his Shield and the two square up. Lexa bows politely to the King and then raises her sword, ready for his first strike. 

“The King insists on sparring with Lexa at least once a week,” Raven explains as the two begin to circle one another in the yard below. “But he’s hasn’t ever beaten her. Doesn’t even come close.” 

Bellamy lunges forward, his sword ringing against Lexa’s as their blades clash against one another in the first of many strikes. 

“The King’s skills in battle are song worthy,” Clarke says. “Everyone knows he’s a skilled fighter.” 

“Yeah, he’s good,” she says, “But there’s a reason why Lexa is the Shield of the King.” 

Down in the yard, Lexa side steps and avoids another of Bellamy’s strikes. They move like this for a while; Bellamy striking, Lexa avoiding, her serious gaze unwavering from Bellamy as he laughs and jokes his way through each of his failed strikes. 

“Come on, Lexa,” he complains jokingly. “Let me get in one good hit with Lady Clarke watching.” 

Lexa’s stoic expression breaks into a smirk and she uses this opportunity to strike, her sword lunging like a steel serpent towards the King. He fumbles, barely managing to block the attack and takes several steps back. 

Their swords sing again, a flurry of strikes parried and blocked, each of them the weaving in and out as they strike and counterstrike each other’s moves. Lexa swings, Bellamy jerks left, Bellamy swings, Lexa parries and the sparring continues, the man known as Shieldbreaker, beings to look like a child in training compared to the grace and confidence that exudes from Lexa on the field. 

“You’re not focused, my King,” Lexa states plainly as she parries yet another of the King’s strikes. “You will never beat me if your mind is elsewhere.” 

Raven groans, “This is no fun. She’s going easy on him.” 

Bellamy readies himself just in time for Lexa’s assault. She swings her sword with precision and speed, driving the blade straight into Bellamy’s and forcing him to stumble backward from the pressure of the blow. She strikes again, meeting his blade a second time and then a third; each strike as precise and powerful as the last. 

He manages to parry the next attack and swings his blade with enough force for Lexa to have to jump backwards to avoid it, putting an end to her assault and bringing Bellamy back into the fray. He moves forward with his momentum, closing the distance with swipe after swipe, keeping Lexa receding. She jumps back, parries at the next swing of his sword, and sidesteps out of the path of the next. 

“How’s that for focus?” Clarke hears Bellamy say, and she can see the confidence in his smile as he twirls his sword in his hand. 

He moves again, his blade coming down hard in a curved arc. Lexa’s sword swings up over her head and catches the blade. She swings her arms, throwing Bellamy and his sword through a loop as she untangles their sword and kicks. Her boot meets his chest and all at once, Bellamy is on the ground. 

Lexa stick out a hand towards the King and Bellamy takes, smiling as his Shield pulls him to his feet. “Better,” she says. “But not enough.” 

“One day I’ll get the better of you,” Bellamy says as he dusts himself off. 

“The day you get the better of me is the day I resign as your Shield, your Highness.” 

Beside her, Raven pushes away from the railing and looks at Clarke. “So, you’re the King’s Consort?” She sticks out a hand and Clarke takes it in her own. Her grip is firm and strong, and her hands are rugged and calloused. “I’m the Royal Blacksmith, Raven Rayes.” 

“Clarke Griffin,” Clarke says as she releases Raven’s hand. 

“Griffin, eh?” Raven says. “Heard a lot of good stories about that House.” 

Clarke stiffens and bobs her head, not sure how to answer. 

“Well,” Raven says with a stretch, ignoring the fact that Clarke hasn’t answered. “You’ll be a Blake soon enough, won’t you?” 

Clarke looks back down at Bellamy who’s got his arm swung around Lexa's shoulders now. His eyes meet hers and they share a smile from across the yard. And the Lexa is looking at her too, those verdant eyes meeting hers with the barest hint of pleasure within them. 

It sends a shiver down Clarke’s spine. 

“I guess I will,” she says. 

♕

“I want to hold a jousting tournament for my Lady Clarke,” Bellamy says over breakfast. “How do we make that happen?” 

Clarke sits across the table from her King, before a spread loaded with eggs and spicy sausages, breads and cheeses, jams, butters, and honeycomb. The spread is what Clarke has come to recognize as a typical breakfast for King and she’s grown quite fond of the spicy sausages and dipping them in honey during her mornings with Bellamy. 

Typically, he begins his royal duties from sunup to sundown, and by the time Clarke pulls herself out of bed and down to breakfast, the King has already eaten. But he has promised to attempt to spend more time with Clarke, and waited until she arrived to so that he could break his fast with her instead of the usual routine of leaving shortly after she arrives. 

But, even with his best efforts to spend time with her, he is always busy. Today he has in his company a man named Monty Green, the Keeper of Coin. Monty is a man of small frame, with shaggy dark hair and very little muscle and Clarke finds it hard not to stare at him in awe over how a man so scrawny could possibly hold up a book as large and heavy as the royal financial records. 

He’s peering through the book, his lips moving a million words a minute as he calculates the cost of the King’s proposed tournament. “Well, Your Highness,” he says after several moments. “I can’t say with complete certainty without going over the other records, but I should be able to put something together.” 

“Perfect,” Bellamy beams, looking at Clarke. “I look forward to hearing your proposal for the tournament by the end of the day." 

Monty bows before his king and tucks the book under one of his arms, “As you wish, Your Highness,” he says, dismissing himself from the king’s presence. 

Finally alone, the king turns to Clarke and asks, “How are you finding yourself here? Good, I hope.” 

“Very well, Your Highness,” Clarke says. 

“Please, just Bellamy,” he reminds, then adds. “I know this is a lot to adjust to.” 

“It is,” Clarke says. 

“Are you becoming more familiar with the castle?” 

Clarke nods even though she can hardly find her way back to her room without assistance. 

“Good,” Bellamy says. “I’m glad to hear it. Hopefully by the time the welcoming tournament rolls around you will feel comfortable and at home here.” 

Clarke can only home he’s right. So far, Clarke feels as far from comfortable or at home as possible, but who is she to tell the King that? She bites her tongue and pokes at her sausages with her fork, not sure of what else there is to talk about. 

She hardly knows Bellamy and it isn’t as if small talk comes easily to her. She has a hard enough time talking to people she _knows_ she likes. But Bellamy? She doesn’t know the first thing about him beyond the good words of the people. 

And maybe the word of the people should be enough. It most certainly would be for any other woman in her position. Reputation says a lot about a man and Bellamy’s is glowing. There is a reason, after all, that he was chosen to rule after the war. Clarke just can’t help but feel like something important is missing. She doesn’t know what it is, but... 

The double oaken doors swing open and Clarke turns around in her chair to watch as Lexa strides into the room. She’s partially armored again, with two swords at her sides and her face painted over the eyes with long claw like streaks running down the apple of her cheeks. 

Clarke watches as she crosses the room, her eyes looking to Clarke for only a moment, before she directed her attention to Bellamy. She leaned over so that her lips were level with his ear and whispered something to him, leaving Clarke to wonder what it could be about as she watched Bellamy’s face twist into a heavy frown. 

Her king wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin and set it atop his plate. “My apologies, Clarke,” he says as Lexa straightens back up beside him. “But there is a matter that requires my immediate attention. Lexa, will you see the Lady to wherever she pleases on my behalf?” 

Lexa bows her head slightly. “Of course, Your Highness,” she says as Bellamy pushes to his feet and gives Clarke a pleading, apologetic look. 

“Tomorrow,” he says. “No distractions. Just you and me.” 

“I’d like that,” Clarke says, and she means it, she thinks, and she keeps thinking it until Bellamy is gone. 

She’s left alone with Lexa, who says nothing and makes minimal eye contact while Clarke finishes eating. She stands at attention, her spine straight and her jaw steeled, eyes forward and unwavering from whatever it is she’s chosen to focus on that isn’t Clarke. So, Clarke finishes her eggs in the quiet, listening to the songs of birds through the open window and trying her best to pretend Lexa wasn’t there. 

That task is easier said than done though, as Clarke continually finds her attention wandering towards Lexa. She doesn’t know if Lexa notices her looking or not, but she doesn’t allow herself to look long enough to find out until she finishes eating and is left to finally address the woman ordered at her side. 

Lexa turns to look at her now and she watches as Clarke sets her napkin atop her plate and push away from the table. “Where would you like to go, Lady Clarke?” 

Clarke purses her lip into a thin line. She hadn’t even begun to think about where she was going to go after she ate. She was too busy trying not to look at Lexa to think about anything else. But Lexa is only here to escort her to her next destination on behalf of Bellamy. A sort of, bank handed chivalry, of sorts. She wasn’t here to spend time with Clarke because she wanted too, and Clarke has to force herself to remember that. 

“I hadn’t thought about it,” she admits after a moment, rising from her seat and pressing away the wrinkles of her dress. “Do you have any suggestions?” 

Lexa takes a moment to deliberate her options and then says, “The Royal Gardens are splendid this time of year. Have you been yet?” 

“No,” Clarke says, surprised by Lexa’s suggestion. “Can you take me?” 

“Of course, my Lady,” Lexa says. “Follow me.” 

The gardens are something Bellamy had suggested she see when she first arrived and she assumed it was because he had hoped to woo her with the flowers from the Elysian Fields they had in their private collection. The Elysian Fields were known throughout Arkaida as a beautiful sea of flowers, many of which didn’t grown anywhere else in realm, surrounding the Crown City. And it’s been rumored that the only place more beautiful and romantic than the fields themselves is the gardens in the palace dedicated to it. 

She thought for sure that she wouldn’t be taken there until Bellamy himself brought her. She tried to find them on her own, but she can hardly find anything on her own here, and after getting lost every single time she ventured out of her chambers, she gave up on ever finding them. 

But Lexa is taking her there. Lexa, not Bellamy. Lexa, the woman who danced with her. Lexa, the woman who can best Bellamy in a battle of swords. Lexa, the woman who Clarke shouldn’t think anything of at all. Lexa, the woman of whom Clarke thinks about near constantly. From the stony, terrifying soldier who ignores her to the pink-eared woman who reacted so nervously at the sight of her naked; its Lexa that plagues her mind the most. 

She knows those thoughts should be about Bellamy, but she pushes that notion aside. She doesn’t want to think about Bellamy because thinking about Bellamy pisses her off. Not that Bellamy in particular pisses her off, but because the thought of being shipped off across the country by her mother to marry a man who will garner her new husband political prowess pisses her off. Because her mother shipping her away so she doesn’t have to see her late husband’s face in her only daughter anymore pisses her off too. 

And she knows its childish and unfair of her to put that pain and anger onto a man who has nothing to do with this predicament, a man who has been just as wrangled into a marriage of politics as her, but she doesn’t care. She has a lifetime to get over it, so she’s going to allow herself the small pleasures of anger while she can. 

But then there’s Lexa, who walks a few paces ahead of her with perfect posture and incomprehensible precision. Whose mere existence fills her mind so wholly that she can’t even remember that she is angry in the first place. It’s like water in a jug; filling every corner and crevasse and leaving room for nothing else. 

And she’s so wrapped up in watching Lexa as they walk – the way her wild hair sways with each step and the way she keeps one hand on the hilt of one her swords as if it were an extension of her hand – that she doesn’t even realize that she’s walked right into the gardens until Lexa’s voice, soft and controlled, asks, “What do you think, my Lady?” 

It's as if a spell goes off in her brain and suddenly the colors around Lexa come into the fold. She’s surrounded by every color imaginable, arches of flowers that crawl on vines and scale every surface. Whites and reds and yellows and oranges, blues and purple and green and black and silver – so much silver that the flowers look like crystals refracting rainbows in the light. Even the walls that surround the gardens have flowers crawling up their surface. The colors blast her senses, spinning and turning like moving stained glass surround her and behind Lexa, a mess of green eyes on pure black who stands out like a seal on an envelope. 

“It’s beautiful,” Clarke says, taking it all in. And it is beautiful. So beautiful that makes her eyes hurt. That she can’t believe these silver, crystal like flowers even exist, the way they take everything that surrounds them and makes them appear almost unreal. The way it makes Lexa look impossibly immortal. The way it turns her into a goddess among men. “I never would have found this place on my own," she says. 

“The castle can be quite difficult to navigate,” Lexa says. “I’d be happy to assist you if you have need to go anywhere and do not know the way.” 

Clarke smiles. “I’d like that,” she says. “I spend most of my time wandering around half lost. That’s actually how I stumbled upon the training yard. Complete accident.” 

“You didn’t come to watch the King?” 

Clarke shakes her head and she begins to wander deeper into the gardens, Lexa following in step beside her. “Not on purpose,” she explains. “But I’m glad I was there to see it. You are the most skilled person I’ve ever seen with a sword. It was like watching a dance. I guess that explains how you dance so well,” Clarke says, and Lexa’s ears grow pink at her compliments. 

“You flatter me, my Lady,” she says, looking at her feet as she walks and Clarke think’s she may have just gotten the stoic soldier flustered and embarrassed. “I am no dancer.” 

“But you’re graceful on your feet,” Clarke says. “More graceful than anyone I've had the pleasure to dance with.” 

“The king would surely be hot with jealously if that were true,” Lexa tells her. “He quite prides himself on his dancing.” 

“It is true,” Clarke says. “And the king will just have to live with that.” 

She smiling so wide now her cheeks are hurting. Between the gardens, being here with Lexa, and recalling the feeling of their dance together, it’s got Clarke feeling some type of way she’s never felt before. Her stomach is in knots and feels like she’s floating on air. And chest is tight and it aches for more of Lexa, so much more than Lexa could possibly have to give her. 

There’s a pause. Lexa stops walking and Clarke stops a few paces ahead and turns to face her when she realizes what’s happening. Then, Lexa looks up from the ground, and into Clarke’s eyes and asks, “So, you enjoyed our dance then?” 

“I think about it all the time,” she admits without thinking about how it might sound. It hurts too much to keep pent up, not when more than anything she would like to dance with Lexa again. To feel whatever that was between them again. “It was truly wonderful.” 

Lexa purses her lips and swallows so harshly it looks like she’s choking back stones. She looks around, almost as if she’s avoiding Clarke’s eyes now and says, “I should be getting back. There is much that needs done.” 

Clarke feels her heart sink into the pit of her stomach. “I see.” she says. “Thank you, again, for bringing me here.” 

Lexa’s stoic expression cracks, and Clarke sees the hint of a smile when she says, “Any time, my Lady.” 

♕

Lexa has done more than take over her thoughts now; she’s taken over her dreams. Which is a very scary thought that’s now keeping Clarke awake at night and when Clarke can’t sleep, she thinks of all sorts of foul things. Like the war and its pillaged towns, raped women and orphaned children, crippled boys and forgotten girls. She thinks about her the last words her father said to her before marching off to war. She thinks about the state of his body when his bones were finally brought home. She thinks about how he must have died, cold and alone and scared. How Wells, a boy of fourteen, died in much the same way. She thinks of her mother alone, the tears that never fell or fell too often. And she thinks of her future, too. And when she thinks of Bellamy, she thinks of Lexa. And when she thinks of Lexa... she’s too afraid to know. 

She thinks of foul things, horrible things, things no person should ever have to see or hear or experience or think. But she thinks of them anyway, and she suffers quietly in the confines of her private chambers. 

But she should sleep, she needs sleep, and she knows this, but she doesn’t care. She can’t sleep; not when her mind goes to places it shouldn’t and the walls and shadows reach out like claws for her soul. Not when every time she closes her eyes see sees Lexa looking back at her with that crack of a smile and those war-painted cheeks, hot and flustered. Which, admittedly is preferable to all the nasty things running rampant in her mind, but she’s so scared of what that might mean, seeing Lexa in her dreams, that she can’t sleep, hence the far more foul thoughts reaching out from the back of her mind. 

She’s drowning in her thoughts, swimming in blackness, suffocating on nothingness. She gasps for air but can’t find any, and she stumbles across her chambers in search of a window, a door, something – anything – to break her away from the pain. To snap her back. To bring he home. Then the thought strikes her; she is home. This chamber, until her wedding day to Bellamy Blake, is hers and this castle, until she dies, is her home. 

And that thought scares her even more than any of the other thoughts she’s got terrorizing her brain. 

She finds the door her fingers clasping over the iron latch and pulls it open in a blurry haste. Her feet stumble forward, out onto cold stone and empty halls of a castle she doesn’t know. She gapes for air, sucking in as much as her lungs can hold as she continues to stagger into the hall. 

The coldness of the hall hits her like a winter storm and suddenly, Clarke is pulling herself out of the darkness and back to reality. She can see the torches that light the halls, the spiral staircase at the end of the corridor, Lexa standing in the top of the stairs with her mouth hanging open and a book slipping from her fingertips. 

“Lady Clarke, is everything alright?” 

But everything’s not alright. She’s just burst out of her room in a panic and now Lexa is here to see it. She gasps for air again, grounding herself with the bite against her lungs and then there’s something warm and soft pressing against her. 

Lexa’s arms are wrapped around Clarke’s shoulders, pulling her close against her as Clarke continues to take in shaking, gasping breaths, her knees on the verge of giving out. She doesn’t want Lexa to see her like this, weak and out of control, but her touch is so warm, so firm and comforting that it’s drawing the darkness away and chipping away the fear that’s taken root on her bones. 

“Let’s get you back to bed,” Lexa says, her voice a whisper against Clarke’s ear. 

Clarke nods and she feels herself being guided, almost carried even though she can feel the cold stone beneath her feet as she walks, back into her chambers. Lexa walks her to her bed and as Clarke sinks into the feather mattress, Lexa’s arms snake to either of her shoulders and she gives Clarke a firm, reassuring squeeze. 

“Hang on one moment,” she says, and Clarke manages to nod again as Lexa turns to add logs to the hearth and stir the fire. 

Clarke watches her for a few moments, watches the way the soft orange light dances on her features, her now clean face glowing in the firelight. Her expression is stern as it usually is and she’s squatting over the fire, poking at it with a metal rod and squinting into the flames. As she watches her stir the embers of the fire back to life, Clarke feels the shadows of her vile thoughts release her, a feeling of calm wash over her like a gentle breeze in her tiny mountain town, misty and crisp and familiar. 

When she turns around, she comes back to Clarke and peels the blankets and furs away, and Clarke follows her lead and allows Lexa to tuck her lower half back into bed. She’s still sitting up, her chest still pounding a bit too hard, but Lexa is here now and the fire is bright and warm and she doesn’t feel quite so vulnerable and broken anymore. 

“What happened?” Lexa asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed as she adjusts the furs around Clarke. 

Clarke shakes her head. “Just nightmares,” she says, not wanting to explain to anyone, not even Lexa, the way her mind wanders to such terrible places when she can’t sleep. 

“I see,” Lexa says, clearly not willing to push the subject. “Do they happen often?” 

Clarke lifts her shoulders. “Often enough,” she says. 

Lexa bobs her chin in understanding. She moves to stand, probably to let Clarke get back to sleep, but the thought of Lexa leaving is the last thing Clarke wants right now because Lexa is everything she needs right now. She’s strong and fierce and warm and soft, gentle and kind... just her father was. And Clarke doesn’t care right now that Lexa fills her mind like an ocean and how scary that is because right now the only thing that really scares her is the thought of Lexa leaving again. 

Her hand grabs Lexa’s wrist without her telling it to. She looks down at Lexa’s arm caught between her fingers, unsure of how it happened but so very relieved that Lexa hasn’t pulled away. “I want you to stay,” she whispers and all she’s hoping for is for Lexa to sit back down, to stay by her side until she falls asleep. 

But what she gets is so much more. 

Lexa surges forward, her free hand reaching up to grab Clarke’s face and her tangled arm wiggled free to meet it there. Their lips crash together and Clarke is assaulted, overwhelmed, taken by everything that is Lexa; her smell, her taste, her touch. Calloused fingers snake around to the back of her head and she knows Lexa’s tangling herself in her hair to pull her closer but it isn’t close enough. She opens her mouth, moaning into Lexa and just as their tongues begin to dance, just as Clarke feels ready to burst with the feeling of Lexa against her, Lexa pulls away. 

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Lexa whispers as her forehead comes to rest against Clarke’s. Her fingers are still tangled in her hair and Clarke, desperate for more, is glad there’s still something of her touching Lexa. 

Clarke’s fingers reach up, touch her jaw, as sharp as steel, and she leans in to kiss her again. Shorter this time, just enough for Clarke to let her know that there’s nothing in the realm that compares to this. That this, unbeknownst to her until this very moment, is exactly what she’s been craving all this time. 


	2. Chapter 2

She’s betrayed her king.

Lexa stands behind Bellamy as he sits upon his throne, doing everything in her power not to look at Clarke by his side as he passes his ruling and judgment upon the commoners come to see him. 

It’s Clarke’s first time sitting on the Queen’s throne. Though they are not yet married, Bellamy has been attempting to slowly work Clarke into his routine so that she might take on the duties of  queendom with as much ease and grace as one could. This, of course, begins with having her sit in for his rulings of the common man. 

Normally, Lexa stands behind the king as his trusted Shield but today, she is protecting not only the king, but Lady Clarke as well. To protect the queen is to be her new normal, the King has told her, and Lexa is having a very hard time adjusting to this reality because, simply put, she’s betrayed her king.

It’s been days, but the ghost of Clarke still lingers on her lips, pining to be reunited again and Lexa has had to steel herself with every ounce of restraint and resolve she can muster so not as to betray her king again. It’s taken constant, endless vigilance, but she’s managed to keep herself away from the King’s soon to be wife in the end. At least, until now, where’s she stuck staring at the side of Clarke’s lovely face from a few feet away for hours upon hours of grueling torture.

But, she’s betrayed her king, and torture is what she deserves.

Clarke is stunning in her steel blue, silken dress, her hair twisted up and braided with silver flowers that make her golden hair glow. She sits poised and presentable, ankles crossed beneath her chair and her fingers twisted together in her lap and she listens patiently and quietly as each problem is listened to and addressed by the king. She will make the perfect queen, the perfect wife, or she would if it weren’t for the fact that Lexa kissed her…

And Clarke kissed her back.

And it’s been a few days, but she’s pretty sure that Clarke hasn’t kissed Bellamy yet, even though she is certain the King won’t wait much longer for their fated first kiss. But something about knowing that Clarke chose her that night, that Clarke kissed her back instead of running off to the King to have her flayed and hanged for her horrendously ill judgment, made her feel like maybe her judgment wasn’t so poor after all.

But it isn’t like she can talk to the lady about this. Clarke is a busy woman of noble birth and high status. She is the King’s consort, the woman who will bear his children and unite the House’s of the east and west. When would she ever have a chance to talk to a lowly knight of the  Kingsglaive ? Especially in private. 

To top that off, Lexa swore an oath when she took the royal swords upon her. And kissing Clarke that night… it went against everything she stood for as a soldier of the  Kingsglaive , as King Bellamy’s Shield. She betrayed him, and now she has to live with the stain of betrayal upon her chest, and watch from a distance as Clarke fulfills her duty to the realm. 

But what made this so torturous wasn’t simply the fact that Clarke was the soon to be the wife of the king or that Lexa had made the mistake of acting on an impulse and kissing Clarke. What made it so torturous was that if and when Bellamy found out. As she stands here behind him, her hand on the sheath of one of her swords and her eyes cast forward unto commoners who have approached the king for guidance and ruling, she feels like a fraud. This role, the Shield of the King, is not a role to be taken lightly. The king must trust her, irrevocably. And Lexa must be willing to fight and die for King she serves. How can that relationship continue if she’s gone and tarnished it with impulsive mistakes.

Mistakes she finds herself craving to make again.

♕

The kingdom of  Arkadia is on good terms with most of their neighboring kingdoms, however, the kingdom to the north has always been a problem.

Azgeda , as it is called, is ruled by a Queen Regent whose cruelty and penchant for despair is unmatched by anyone Lexa has ever had the displeasure to meet. Lately, there has been movement by large sums of  Azgedean forces along the border, and several raids by smaller parties on the towns of  Arkadia in the deep north who straddle the line between the two kingdoms. Because of this, Lexa has started working her soldiers extra hard during their morning training so as to ensure the safety of King should  Azgeda’s forces ever reach their doors.

The king has said these rigorous sparring drills are redundant and unnecessary. As soldiers of the king, the  Kingsglaive’s duty is to the castle and the King, not wars unfought in the north. However, Lexa feels that part of the duty of the  Kingsglaive is to be the most terrifying and resound force in the realm, and the smaller the chance of overtaking the throne, the smaller the chance of  Azgedan invasion.

So, she runs them through sparring drills for hours in the morning, and again in the evening with a second set of soldiers. Pushes their bodies further than they’ve ever gone before, and not just her soldiers. Lexa too takes part. She runs the courses, partakes in the sparring matches, and drills the art of the twin swords into her body so that it is as fluid as water and as second nature as the beat of her own heart. 

It’s one of the only things that keeps her mind focused and concise, locked onto her goals and ready for whatever may come. There are no thoughts of her kiss with Clarke, her betrayal of the king. Only training, only her duty, only what is left of her honor. 

The morning sun is hot and bright when she meets with her soldiers in the yard for endurance and stamina training, a group of three dozen men and women sworn and trained to fight and die for the King. Among them are some of Lexa’s finest soldiers and many of them more skilled in combat than any knight in the realm. 

They know the course, and they know what is expected of them: a lap around the palace walls before physical conditioning and sparring. And Lexa has to do little more than flick her wrist at the aligned soldiers to send them jogging through the training yard and towards their first checkpoint.

She follows not far behind them at a light jog. The course is long and it’s best to pace oneself if they intend to make it through to the sparring with stamina to spare. So Lexa keeps pace with the more advanced members of the forces under her command, the ones who have run this course enough to know that speed will get them nowhere. That this is not a test of strength or stamina, but willpower and determination. 

Lexa cuts through an inner yard and jogs up a spiral stairwell that takes her to the top of the rampart walls. From here she is able to run alongside her soldiers with an elevated purchase that allows her to see them all in action. Young Aden, their newest recruit, leads the pack several paces ahead while Anya, Lexa’s most skilled soldier, trails behind at the back.

Lexa slows her pace as the soldiers below her begin to lose their steam. She could easily continue on at her current pace for quite a while, but she wants to stay behind and above, monitor her soldiers and watch their performance so she can best critique and train them for the future. They begin to turn a wide corner and Aden has started to fall behind, quickly finding himself passed by four other of the pack trailblazers and about to be passed by more So Lexa quickens her pace again, runs ahead of the crew and back down another stairwell that forces her to sprint to catch back up by the time she reaches the bottom.

She matches pace with Aden, and grabs his shoulder as they run, jerking his attention to her. “Take a breather Aden,” she says. “Grab some water and rejoin us. This is not a race and victory will come to those who pace themselves.”

Aden slows to a stop and the soldiers press on past them and around them, their boots ringing against the cobblestone like horses in a race. He nods, puffing and desperate for air and Lexa smiles and places both hands atop his shoulders, squeezing him between her hands. 

“You will be a fine member of the  Kingsglaive one day. Now go, refresh yourself.”

It’s when Aden dismisses himself that she sees her – Clarke – painted by the sun.

She’s sitting on a stone worked bench in one of the inner yards, her face cast down and into a book of some sort, the sun dripping down her skin like liquid gold. She’s wearing a simple red dress that makes her hair shine all the more and makes her blue eyes stand out like an accent against the deep crimson of her gown. Her hair is braided and decorated with flowers, cascading down one shoulder like a brushstroke of sunlight, and her face is soft and delicate in the morning light. 

Clarke looks up from her book, catches sight of Lexa across the yard, and smiles brightly, her fingers wiggling with the slightest wave hello. 

The air in Lexa’s lungs escapes her in a rush, and she can feel her ears growing hot at the sight of Clarke greeting her. She’s been avoiding her for days and Lexa deserves nothing more than cruelty and coldness, but here she is, greeting her from across the yard.

Clarke closes her book and rises to her feet and Lexa knows she should move, get back to training, catch up with her soldiers who have all now passed her by, but Clarke is coming towards her and her feet have turned into stones, too heavy to lift. So, she does the only thing she can do. She steels her jaw, straightens her spine, and returns her greeting.

“Lady Clarke,” she says, “Good morning.”

Clarke takes her in, her eyes moving down and up Lexa’s form in a slow, concise observation that has Clarke’s lower lip tangled between her teeth. Lexa thinks Clarke doesn’t realize she’s doing it, but the fact that she is sends a heat through Lexa that she struggles to contain. 

She swallows thickly, pushes her lips into a thin line, and watches as Clarke’s ocean eyes finally reach her.

“I’m not interrupting anything important, am I?” Clarke asks.

“Just morning training,” Lexa says.

“Oh?” She asks, “What does that entail?”

Lexa looks over her shoulder at the towering walls. “A lap around the outer yard of the Palace, physical conditioning, and sparring,” she explains. 

“And you take part in all of that? On top of all your other duties?”

Lexa nods once. “I have to keep myself conditioned too, my Lady.”

“For what?” Clarke asks. “The  Kingsglaive never leaves the castle.”

Lexa feels herself breaking into a smile in spite of herself. “It’s true we're the soldiers of the king and we are wherever he is, but even if we do live in a time of peace, we have a reputation to uphold. Me especially.”

“Oh,” Clarke says and she looks at the ground. “You don’t have time to take a walk with, then, do you?”

Lexa closes her eyes and says, matter of fact, “It is my duty to provide you support and service, Lady Clarke. If a walk is what you desire then I will see it done,” because if she said it any other way she might lose all ability to speak at all and she can’t have Clarke seeing her crumbling to weakness at the sight of her beauty. 

“But what about your training?”

“My soldiers don’t need me to tell them how to train. They will be fine unsupervised for the time being.”

Clarke smiles and closes what remained of the space between them. They’re shoulder to shoulder and Lexa stiffens at the touch of the fabric of Clarke’s dress against her exposed bicep. She swallows, forces her chin high and asks with her most dignified voice, “Where too, my Lady?”

Clarke’s eyes narrow, heavy and lidded, and she leans dangerously close when she says, “The Library was empty last time I was there.”

Somethings caught in Lexa’s throat and she struggles to swallow. “The library it is, my Lady Clarke,” she chokes out and sets off on a dutiful march through the yards and into the castle. 

The walk is silent and awkward and Lexa spends the entire trek through the castle lost within the trenches of her own mind. She’s torn, immediately, by Clarke’s words, what they could imply and how best to handle them. On the one hand she could assume that Clarke simply wants to talk in private about what had transpired between them and the fact that Lexa has spent days trying to avoid running into Clarke at all costs (great job that’s done her now). The library, which is a rarely used room, would make a perfect place for them to discuss how wrong it was of them to act on such impulses in the deep hours of the night. How it shouldn’t, can’t, and won’t, happen again.

She can imagine Clarke telling her she had taken advantage of her, taken advantage of the situation and misread what it was Clarke had wanted from her when she grabbed her wrist like that. She can hear the scolding tones resonating like low octave bells in her mind, and simply imagining what Clarke sounds like angry begins to put her in a sour mood. Not because she doesn’t deserve it, as she most certainly does, but because she doesn’t like the idea of anyone – herself included – upsetting the soon to be queen.

And while this is the logical outcome – the outcome that  _ should _ happen – it's not the outcome she hopes happens. Because there is another path this walk may take them down.

Lexa feels like her chest might explode at the thought, the pounding in her chest as resonant as a hammer forging a blade. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears, feel the tremble of anxiety in her fingers even though they’re tangled into white-knuckled fists, all at the thought of the possibility of Clarke not turning her away, but seeking more.

She had kissed her back that night, and more than that, she had kissed her again; that second kiss so delicate and soft, lips barely brushing against her for more than a moment. But it was enough, enough to tell Lexa that Clarke felt the same as her – that whatever it was Lexa felt forming between them was real, and that Clarke felt it too. 

The logical part of her brain chastised her for allowing herself to get worked up over a possibility that Lexa knew she was obligated to ensure never came to fruition. But that part of her brain was fighting a losing battle, and she knew it. Clarke was like an arrow through her chest, and you can’t simply rip an arrow out. It has to be pushed through. And Lexa knows, she can feel it in her very soul, she has to see whatever this is through to the end.

Clarke follows beside her as they trudge up the stairs and down the hall towards the Royal Library. The library itself is a rather unused room in the Castle. If the king requires a book, he sends someone to fetch it and bring it to his personal study. So, other than the occasional errand on behalf of the king, no one in the castle has the time or the desire to peruse the towering shelves of old books and tales. Well, other than the  meisters , but there is only a handful of those old scholarly physicians in the entire castle and they often keep a pile of books in their chambers, making their trips to the library infrequent at best.

Despite the slight chance of running into someone, Clarke is right, and the library is completely void of life. It’s shelves upon shelves of books and parchment rolls, stacked from floor to ceiling and atop nearly every table and surface. It has a slight stench to it, the smell of dust and parchment and leather swirling together into something distinct and unique and Lexa realizes that it’s been far too long since she has allowed herself the leisure of reading.

Clarke strolls past Lexa and when Lexa doesn’t follow, she turns and grabs Lexa’s fingers. She tugs on them lightly, pulling her through the library as Clarke meanders through the shelves, her book still tucked under one arm, until she arrives near the back where there is little around to see but towers of books in every direction. Clarke places the book she was carrying onto the shelf, careful to slide it into the missing hole she had earlier made, and then turns to Lexa.

“We should talk about the other night,” Lexa says as Clarke opens her mouth. “I was out of line. I shouldn’t have acted upon my impulses the way I did and I will—”

Clarke silences her with a kiss. It’s deep and longing and just as Lexa begins to register what is happening, Clarke is snaking her arms up around Lexa’s neck and pulling her in for more. There’s no time to think, nowhere for her brain to run off to so she can weigh out her options now. She’s cornered by everything that is Clarke and instinctively, Lexa pulls her in for more. She’s got her arms around her waist, her hands resting on the gentle swell of her hips, fingers pressing into the soft skin under her dress.

“Wait,” Lexa breathes, forcing her might straight. “This isn’t right. We should—”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Clarke tells her, and then she’s coming in for more.

Lexa is spinning with the scent of Clarke, the flowers and oils of her freshly bathed skin combined with something so deeply unique it can only belong to Clarke. She pulls her in again, lets herself fall victim to her impulses and begins seeking entrance into Clarke so as to get more. More her taste, more of her touch, more of her everything.

She has no idea how this happened. Hadn’t she resolved that this was a mistake? Hadn’t she decided to put an end to this; to make things right between them, for Clarke’s sake, for what remained of her honor, for the good of the realm? But Clarke has a way of getting under her skin and penetrating her thoughts, making a mess out of her organized mind and drawing her name on everything Lexa sees so that all she can see, all she can think, is Clarke. Clarke. More of Clarke, and now she’s fiercely tugging on her dress as Clarke kisses her with violent haste, possessively, biting her on her lips and sucking on her tongue. 

This time, Clarke breaks away and Lexa has to stop herself from reflexively pulling her back. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” Lexa says, searching for wind in her chest and finding nothing. But what did she expect? Clarke has a habit of making it disappear on her, after all.

“We shouldn’t,” Clarke agrees. “But, I want to. Don’t you?”

She should say no. She should shut this down, end it, stomp on the flames until there’s nothing left and walk away, back to her training with her soldiers.

“Yes.”

And that’s all it takes; one word, and she knows there’s no going back from this. 

♕

They kiss at every opportunity they can find, and this dangerous game they play has Lexa on a high of which she’s never felt before.

They kiss in Clarke’s room late at night and early in the morning when Lexa brings her too and from the King’s side. They kiss in empty hallways – just for a moment – when walking through the palace. They kiss in the King’s study when he excuses himself for the shortest of moments. And they kiss passionately in the library, where no one but a near deaf old  meister might catch them. They even kiss in the throne room late one night, Clarke sitting on Bellamy’s throne like the queen she will one day be, Lexa leaning over her and drinking in everything that is Clarke for as long as she can. It’s as if every moment they get alone, they’re drawn to one another like flies to honey, the stars to the moon.

It’s a dangerous path they walk, but Lexa can’t help herself and as it seems, neither can Clarke. They’ve risked themselves more times than Lexa can count, just for the smallest touch and the spark of Clarke’s skin against her own. But they’re careful, or as careful as they can be given the circumstances, because one or both of them are almost always in Bellamy’s presence these days and the last thing they need is to be caught by none other than the King himself. But being careful is a painful endeavor and time moves at a crawl whenever Lexa finds herself doing little more than paying Clarke a  sidelonged glance or a curt nod while in her presence. 

Lexa’s been watching Clarke from the corner of her eye for the past several hours while Bellamy talks in detail about what his hopes and plans for the tournament in honor of House Griffin will be. He’s got big plans, many of them costly and extravagant, and Lexa more often than not finds herself biting her tongue at the King’s attempts to woo Clarke with his money. She knows he hopes to participate in the jousting, as it’s something he is very good at, and maybe land in Clarke’s good graces by showcasing his knightly skills. But Clarke has very little interest in the tournament at all and merely goes along with any and every suggestion Bellamy makes for the sake of keeping him happily in the dark to what Lexa knows is truly going on in her mind.

And Clarke is bored, so very bored that it’s almost painful to watch as Bellamy fails to come to the same conclusion that Lexa had reached so long ago. But, Bellamy doesn’t know Clarke the way Lexa does. His time with her is spent boasting and flourishing and making himself appear dashing, not genuinely trying to get to  _ know _ Clarke. Not that Lexa knows Clarke particularly well herself yet, but, at least she’s done more to alleviate that than the king. And one thing Lexa has certainly gotten a grasp on that the King has not, is the expressions that play on Clarke’s features.

“Your Highness,” Lexa says after a long-winded explanation from Bellamy about the details of how jousting works and how good he is at it, “Don’t you think it be best to leave something to surprise the Lady with?”

Clarke gives her a thankful look of relief that the King again fails to notice when he says, “Where is the fun in a jousting tournament if you don’t know how it works or who to root for?”

Lexa pushes her lips into a thin line. “Of course, your Highness,” she says. “I was wrong to make presumptions. My apologies.”

Bellamy looks to Clarke and frowns, something finally dawning on him. “Although, I do suppose I can get carried away by the excitement of it all,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “Maybe it’s best we finish here for the day my Lady. I can have Lincoln escort you back to your chambers and we can resume again in the morning.”

“That sounds wonderful, Bellamy,” Clarke says, her eyes going just over Bellamy’s head to meet with Lexa who stood behind him. There’s a spark there, something Lexa has grown used to seeing, and she can tell that Clarke is ravenous with need despite her lady-like behavior before the king.

“Allow me to escort the lady,” Lexa says abruptly. “Lincoln is more familiar with the details of jousting than I. He could provide you with an excellent opinion so as to how best to gift the Lady with a splendid tournament.”

“Good idea, Lexa,” Bellamy says. “Very well.”

Lexa nods and follows Clarke out the room, holding open the door for the Lady and then closing it behind them, leaving Bellamy to his excited planning with Lincoln.

They’re hardly at the end of the hall when Clarke start’s brushing up against Lexa as they walk. Lexa stops, tangles her fingers around Clarke’s and kisses each of her knuckles gently before releasing Clarke from her grasp. It’s like a secret message between them, an exchange of lips on skin that’s easily hidden in a pinch. “Soon, my Lady.”

“Not soon enough,” Clarke whines. “I listened to him prattle on for hours about jousting and his victories in the war while you stood there, looking like  _ that _ , behind him.”

“I know, my Lady,” Lexa says. “But we will be alone soon.”

They walk briskly through the castle, Lexa’s boots clunking again the floor and echoing down the halls as they make their way from Bellamy’s study to the safety of Clarke’s chambers, where they can be alone and finally be themselves. But until then, things are quiet and heavy between them, with little more than sideways glances and ‘accidental’ touches as they march side by side up the stairs.

The door of Clarke’s chambers barely clicks shut before Clarke is leaping into her, their lips crashing like waves against stone. Lexa stumbles back, her shoulder blades pressing against the iron worked oaken door and finding support from it to hold both herself and Clarke upright. 

“Gods,” Clarke husks between kisses. “I’ve missed you.”

It’s barely been more than a day, and the logical part of Lexa’s brain knows this, but the side of her that craves for Clarke agrees with the Lady. It’s been a long and torturous day for them both. Bellamy has always had a way with prattling and boasting about himself, ever since he was a knighted at the age of fifteen and Lexa, having served as Knight in the same battalion, has spent literal years listening to the man’s enormous, though arguably warranted, ego. 

She was used to Bellamy as he was, as he truly was, but Clarke got to see only the most annoying sides of him. The sides that reflect a boy desperate for attention and praise. A boy who Lexa is seeing for the first time since his days as a Squire. It’s painfully dreadful and Lexa wishes more than anything that she could spare Clarke from it all, but he is to be her husband, and the tradition of wooing and courting by the man to wed her is just something that Clarke has no choice but to endure.

If Clarke were anyone else, literally anyone at all, she would defend the King. Tell her that he’s a good man and that he will calm down with time and that, eventually, all of this will feel normal and routine. But Clarke isn’t anyone else, she’s Clarke. She’s the woman who’s broken Lexa and turned her into the very person she never wanted to be, an oath breaker, a liar. And yet, Clarke is also the person that makes her care not about her broken oaths or her deceit, because when Clarke is around, Lexa can only feel one thing – her desire for Clarke.

And is it truly a sin in the eyes of the gods? To follow one’s heart when it craves for someone the way Lexa’s heart earns for Clarke; the way Clarke returns that need? Lexa will not pretend to be an expert on religion, but isn’t it the will of Rauva that the people seek out love and to be loved? But is this feeling, this desire she has for Clarke, the will of  Rauva ? Or is it the work of a god more sinister and foul?

If it is, Lexa is in too deep to care. And truth be told, she deserves whatever will the Gods may bring her. She’s chosen to break her vows in favor of a woman arranged to be wed. If punishment and torture is to be her fate, then so be it. So long as she can have moments like this, with Clarke, until then.

♕

It’s when Bellamy decides to surprise Clarke with his undivided attention for an entire day that Lexa most wishes she could be by his side. However, as that would interrupt Bellamy’s plans to be dashing and knightly, Lexa is sent with Clarke’s mother into the Crown City for a bit of shopping.

The entire concept of Bellamy spending every hour of light with Clarke already put Lexa into something of a sour mood, but trudging through the slowest ever carriage ride with Lady Abigail through the crowded streets of  Elysia has made things even worse. She hardly looks at the noble woman as they travel, keeping her eyes locked on the small crack between the velvet drapes of their carriage and her desire to participate in conversation is minimal at best. Thankfully, Lady Abigail isn’t a particularly chatty woman either and the tense silence that befalls them doesn’t feel quite so tense or awkward when Abigail spends the entire ride looking out the opposite window of Lexa. 

Lady Abigail looks nothing like her daughter, but she is still very beautiful. She holds herself with a perfected grace of a Lady from a powerful House and a sits about the carriage with a particular aura about her, the type of feeling Lexa gets only in the presence of the most powerful of men. It’s astounding, really, the power that radiates off the lady of house Kane, and Lexa wonders if it is her that Clarke has learned how to control a room with a single look from.

“So you’re The Shield of the King,” the Lady had said when Lexa first arrived to act as her escort.

“I am, my Lady,” Lexa responded proudly but all she got from the Lady was a roll of her eyes and a wave of her hand.

“Very well,” she said. “Let us go then.”

Since then, neither of them has said a word. Lexa rarely sees the point in speaking to noble family members without being spoken to first, and the Lady seems rather uninterested in having someone such as Lexa escort her at all. It isn’t until the carriage stops for several long moments that Lady Abigail announces her intentions to abandon their carriage and walk the rest of the way to the Exchange. 

“Are you coming?” she asks in a tone that rings more on the side of impatient demand than genuine curiosity.

“Yes, my Lady,” Lexa says and she ducks her head out of the carriage and into the busy streets.

The Crown City, a robust and densely populated city called  Elysia , is ripe with life this time of day. The market streets are crowded and the Exchange at the end of the road is so full that people stand in droves outside of the iron worked arches that make up its entrance. People are shouting deals at them from every direction, urging them to look at their produce, their fishing haul, their weaved baskets and ceramic pots. Bakers stand in the streets selling little cakes and sweet breads and the smell of sugar and honey coats over the stench of unwashed commoners and flea covered children.

“What are we looking for today,” Lexa asks as she shoulders through the crowd behind Lady Abigail. “Anything in particular?”

They push through the crowds, shouldering and shoving, Lady Abigail leading the way with poise and determination; some sort of goal in her mind as she makes her way towards the exchange. The exchange is a place where traders gather. It’s different from the markets because the majority of what’s available isn’t baked breads and harvested crops, they’re imported textiles and jewels and treasures from distant lands. Many of the finest products in the realm are sourced by materials gathered from the exchange, and only the wealthiest of people can afford to shop there, making way for barters and indentured services as payments for goods, hence the name “The exchange”.

“I’m looking for silks for a dress,” Lady Abigail says. “I heard the southern isles have the finest silks in the realm and I’d like to purchase something of that quality while I’m here in the Crown City.”

Lexa has to raise her voice as they approach the exchange, the crowds growing dense and congested around them. “I will keep my eyes peeled for your request.”

“And what do you know of fine silks?”

A fair point, Lexa drawls, and she purses her lips into a thin line. She doesn’t know much of anything about sewing or fabric. As a girl her stitches were always crooked and lacking in decency. It was one of the many reasons why Lexa chose not to pursue the life of the lady and instead dedicate herself to the blade. “Not much, my Lady,” she says. “But I do know beauty when I see it. I am not blind.”

“That you are not,” Abigail agrees. “Very well. I’m looking for something jewel toned, ideally a deep sapphire color. Enough fabric to sew a dress with. Think you can handle that?”

“I’ve faced greater challenges,” Lexa says. 

They enter the Exchange and begin perusing the stands for an appropriate selection of silks. They wander through the crowds, glancing over stands and crates, barrels and carts, looking for a textile stand that meets Lady Abigail’s raised standards. Eventually, they come across a cart of silk fabrics and the Lady takes her time digging through the cart and draping the fabrics over her arm one by one as if testing the color against her skin. 

Finally, she holds a roll of silk up for Lexa and asks, “What do you think?”

The fabric is a deep, jewel blue, just as the lady had sought out, soft and smooth in way that feels like water to the touch. “It’s a fine color, my Lady.”

“Yes,” she says, “But is it fine enough for Clarke?”

Lexa imagines Clarke wrapped up in flowing blue silks and smiles at the thought of her golden hair and sapphire eyes. “She would look radiant in such a fine fabric.”

Lady Abigail frowns and looks at the fabric again, rubbing it between her fingers as she observes the quality in speculative detail. “And what of the King?” she asks, after a moment. “I know that red and gold is the fashion of wedding gowns for high houses here but, it is not the tradition of  Aerofall . Would he approve of such a color?”

Lexa has to remind herself that the opinion of the King actually matters in this as Clarke is to be his wife soon, and not hers. She swallows at the thought and fights the urge to shake her head to toss it away. “I’m sure the king will find Clarke beautiful in anything she wears, my Lady.”

The Lady smiles at this. “He is a good man, isn’t he?” she asks, and Lexa can’t discern if the question is genuine concern or an observation seeking approval until she adds, “he will treat my daughter right?”

“I will personally make sure of it, my Lady.”

♕

“You know,” Clarke says one night in her chambers, “I think I’m starting to get the hang of eastern fashion.”

She’s twirling in a crimson dress alight by firelight from the hearth of her chambers before Lexa. It's a new dress, one sewn especially for her by the royal seamstresses, and it fits her body perfectly. 

“You look stunning, my Lady,” Lexa says. “Exemplary.” 

Clarke smiles and leans over Lexa, kissing her gently on her forehead. “If I didn’t know about your oath to honesty I would say you’re just saying that to make me feel better. Red really isn’t my color. It’s more yours.”

“Dresses like that are for ladies, not soldiers,” Lexa says. 

“But all you ever wear is black,” Clarke whines. 

“It is the color of the  Kingsglaive .”

Clarke frowns playfully. She wraps her arms around Lexa’s neck and seats herself in her lap, Clarke’s legs draping over the arm of the chair and her fingers playing with the small hairs on the back of Lexa’s neck. She kisses her again, this time on her lips and leaving Lexa wanting. “So, no chance of seeing you in jewels and silks?” she plays. 

Lexa shakes her head. “Not in this lifetime, my Lady,” she says, and deepens the kiss between them. 

Night is the safest time for them, and Clarke’s chambers are like armor, protecting them from the outside. So long as the castle sleeps, Clarke and Lexa are free to explore their growing feelings and release the tensions of the day spent apart. 

In particular, Lexa has been thinking about the wedding dress her mother intends to sew for her and how beautiful Clarke will be in it. She hasn’t told Clarke about the dress, nor has she told the king. It’s like her own private image of Clarke, dressed in blue and accented with silver flowers in her golden hair, smiling at her on her wedding day. It’s not for her, and she knows this, but for now it feels like hers and that’s all that matters. Just like it feels like Clarke is hers in spite of her engagement to Bellamy. 

‘You’re no fun,” Clarke complains, her voice still light and playful in spite of her frown.

Lexa runs her fingers up Clarke’s leg, under the fabric of her dress and presses fingerprints into her thighs, feeling the smooth skin and toned muscles that hide beneath long dresses and frivolous gowns. “Am I now?” she asks, her forehead pressing against Clarke’s as her fingers travel north. “And here I thought I was the most exciting girl in the yard.”

“Dangerous and fun are not mutually exclusive things, Lexa,” Clarke muses. “Though I must admit, the air of danger is quite the stimulant when it comes to you.”

Lexa kisses her again, her teeth catching Clarke’s bottom lip between them as she pulled away again. “So, I am fun,” She says with a hint of smugness that she can’t seem to hide.

Clarke lips brush against Lexa’s neck, the words “I guess you are,” whispered in hot breaths against her skin that sends a chill down her spine and lights a fire within her abdomen. Clarke twists herself in Lexa’s lap, swinging her legs over so that she’s straddling her now and pressing up against her so close that she can feel the heat radiating off of Clarke’s body and into her. She captures Lexa’s face in her hands and licks her lips before pulling Lexa into their most heated kiss yet. “Care to prove it?”

She wants to. She really, really, wants to. But she can’t stay. She’s been here too long already. “Don’t tease me like that,” Lexa whispers as their kiss breaks. “You know I have to go.”

Clarke frowns again and their foreheads find purchase against one another in this short lived somber moment between them. “I know,” Clarke says. “But come back soon, okay?”

Lexa tilts her chin up and kisses Clarke’s lower lip. “First thing in the morning, my Lady. I promise.”

♕

The king has a visitor from a lord in the North and the castle is in a state of high tension and stress because of it, including Lexa, who has been up since before the sun following around the King instead of wishing Lady Clarke a good morning like she originally promised.

Despite the panic setting in with the small council, Bellamy himself is in a light and cheery mood, probably from having spent an entire day with Clarke the day before and considers it to have been a resounding success. He talks with Lexa idly about their stroll through the castle, their time in the gardens, picking flowers and braiding them into Clarke hair while she told him stories about her life in  Aerofall . All of it makes Lexa sick to her stomach, and forces her to confront the sneaking around she and Clarke do in the late hours of night. 

He tells her about the crimson dress she had worn, how she was becoming more familiar with Eastern fashion and how their day had gone so well, he was thinking of asking her to join him for round two all while Lexa finds herself reflecting upon Clarke in her lap late last night, wearing the very same dress that Bellamy had found so lovely. She feels gross thinking about it, and not just because she is a liar and a traitor to the crown. She feels assaulted with sludge and grime by every detail of Bellamy’s time with Clarke as if it were a slap of horse shit to the face.

But Bellamy continues on, telling her every painfully detailed moment of their time together until Lexa is near the point of bursting. Then, as if out of nowhere, he asks Lexa about her time with Clarke’s mother. 

“So what did you do with Lady Abigail in the city?” Bellamy asks as they walk towards the throne room. “Anything interesting?”

“Just shopping for silks, your Highness. Nothing that would interest you,” Lexa says, keeping her eyes forward and her tone indifferent. 

“Silks for the Lady Abigail, or for my Lady Clarke?”

“For the Lady Clarke,” Lexa says. “For her wedding dress, I believe.”

“Will I like it?” Bellamy asks, and Lexa bites down on her cheeks at his happy dreaming and his skill for ignoring the problems at hand, as if Pike’s arrival is little more than an inconvenience. “What am I saying, of course I’ll like it. You’ve seen Clarke. She’s gorgeous.”

Lexa presses her lips into a thin line. “Yes,” she agrees sternly. “She is.”

Bellamy elbows her side and says. “I have to admit, when the small council insisted I marry a woman from the west I was… skeptical. But… damn. Did I get lucky or what?”

“You are very lucky, your Highness.”

Bellamy smiles pleasantly to himself and Lexa forces herself not to roll her eyes. She is in his Highness’ presence, and behavior such as that is not befitting of the Kings shield. So she takes it all in, listens to every word and watches every smile, and pretends as if it doesn’t bother her. And then, when the opportunity finally comes, she changes the subject from Clarke to the northern lord requesting Bellamy’s audience. 

“There’s trouble in the north, your Highness. Maybe it’s best we focus on what could be asked of you in an audience with Lord Pike.”

Bellamy crosses his arms behind his head and frowns. “I suppose you’re right, as usual, Lexa,” he admits. “This Lord Pike has just chosen a really inconvenient time to decide that the North needs more aid. I don’t know what he’s expecting to hear. Our forces are already stretched too thin. And I can’t send any more people to guard the border without sending a negative message to our less than friendly neighbors.”

Lexa nods and she opens the door. Bellamy does have a point, this meeting does seem pointless in many regards. There is only so much the King can do without sending a message that might strike a war that the country cannot afford.  Arkadia is still recovering from the war that placed Bellamy as King, so having another one now would surely crush the kingdom. But at the same time, the King is spending his time planning tourneys and parties instead of negotiating his money and resources for the betterment of the people. And with a tournament for House Clarke only weeks away, it serves to add fuel to a fire that Lexa knows Lord Pike has come to bring to their table.

Lord Pike is already waiting for them in the throne room. He’s a broad man with hardly any hair atop his head and a well-groomed beard. He has hard, cold eyes and an expression of such stature and nobility that he comes across as stern and unyielding and Lexa thinks to herself, this is a man who is accustomed to being the most important man in the room.

“Your Highness,” he greets, opening his arms wide. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”

Lexa bit down hard on her cheeks, her jaw steeling as she stiffened behind the King. 

Bellamy, however, smiled as he always does and tips his head in a gentle bow that he has no reason to make as far as Lexa is concerned and says, “It isn’t often that a Lord travels such a distance to request a private audience with the King. Whatever this is about, must be important.”

“It is, Your Highness. Else I wouldn’t have come here myself.”

Bellamy walks deeper into the room, squaring himself up with Pike as he passes the lord and goes to take his seat upon the throne. “What is it you’ve come to ask of me?” He asks as he sits.

“As  I'm sure you’re aware,” Pike begins, his eyes fluttering to Lexa as she moves to take her place behind him, her hand gripping the hilt of one of her swords for protective measures. “Our relationship with  Azegeda is rough on a good day. Well, we haven’t had a good day in several years and I’m beginning to fear for the people’s ability to survive another winter. We barely survived last winter and our numbers have dwindled down to a fraction of what they used to be. Children are dying if not by the hands of rouge  Azgedans then by starvation due to the raids by rouge  Azgedans . We don’t have enough growing in our farms for your taxation and ourselves, and our soldiers are weak and untrained for the combat role they’ve been sent to fulfill.” 

Pike steps forward with a sense of urgency about him. “Your highness, we have farmers dying trying to protect their lands and their families. This can’t continue.”

Bellamy nods, and Pike continues. “And now, as I travel across the kingdom to speak with you, I start hearing rumors of a tournament being held here in the Crown City? Your Highness, that’s money and resources that the North desperately needs, and you’re throwing it away on a party for a girl from a mountain town in the West?”

“Are you suggesting that the unification of the East and West is not important to you, Lord Pike?” Bellamy’s voice was lower, his tone losing its usual canter.

“The East and the West matter not to the North, your Highness.”

“Suggesting that neither myself nor my Lady Clarke matter to you suggests that you don’t deserve the support of the Crown. Which makes me wonder why it is you traveled here at all.”

“Apologies, your Highness,” Pike says bitterly. “I did not mean to offend. I am only worried about my people.”

There’s a thick, heavy tension in the room and Lexa drums her fingers along the hilt of her sword in awkward anticipation over the events unfolding before her. Her jaw is clenched so tight that there’s a hot pain surging in her throat and she can taste iron on her tongue. 

“I hear you and your pleas Lord Pike,” Bellamy says after several empty moments. “But the Crown is stretched too thin and I can send no more aid to the North without pulling it from somewhere else that needs it.”

“If we don’t receive your support, people will die. Your borders will be invaded and war will come.”

“And if I send soldiers to the border then I will have war at my door tomorrow.  Azgeda is not something I can take lightly, Lord Pike. It is a delicate balance and I’m doing everything within my power to maintain that balance.”

“I don’t think you are,” Pike says. “I think you’re ignoring the problem and focusing on insignificant details. War will come either way. The only question is are you going to support the front lines or let them die?”

♕

The barracks are a foul-smelling place.

Grime cakes the walls and floor, filling it with a signature stench that mixes with the unwashed, sweaty bodies of soldiers after a long day’s work. The beds are rows upon rows of mats or straw, mostly covered in fleas and all of them at least a little, or a lot, uncomfortable to sleep on. One would think that keeping the King’s personal military force at least partially content might be wise, but forgetting about the state of the barracks is a long-standing tradition that predates even Bellamy’s predecessor, the Mad King Wallace’s father. 

Lexa lays upon her mat at some gods forsaken hour of the night, wide awake when she should be asleep, thinking about  Azgeda and their current position along their northern border. She’s lost sleep over  Azgeda before, but never quite like this. It feels like war is imminent at this point, and that the king adamantly ignoring the reality of the war on his heels. 

It’s an understandable position; five years of peace after twelve years of brutal fighting for the crown in a war known as the War of Three Kings where Charles Pike was one of those declared Kings, makes for an uncomfortable and skeptical position to be put in for anyone who sits upon the throne. Lexa does not envy King Bellamy one bit, but she does find herself wondering what sort of decision she would make differently than the King has, and the possible positive and negative outcomes of such decisions in comparison to the possible outcomes they face in reality.

For one, Lexa would have done more than simply send Pike packing with an assortment of castle forged steel. Sure, arming the men and women of the North will help and, in a pinch, castle forged steel sells for one hell of a price to the right person, but swords and armor do nothing to help people who don't know how to use it. In fact, putting that much steel in the hands of untrained farmers and ranchers basically guarantees that the very steel that has been sent to aid them will be stolen and used to end their lives if what Pike says about raiders is true.

And yes, Lexa is wary to believe a man who pined so intensely for the crown for little more than personal gain and ended up falling short, but she can’t simply turn her back on innocent people either. 

This tournament that Bellamy is holding for Clarke… it's a massive sum of gold that could have been better utilized to at least inspect the north, sent soldiers to towns to at least hear word from the people themselves on their current conditions. But, it's being used for a party in honor of uniting the House Blake of the East with House Griffin of the West.

And it could be argued that this was an important political move that serves to solidify the alliance between the East and West. As the third King in the war, Marcus Kane, is a man of the west. Uniting the stepdaughter of the chosen King of the west to the crowned King of the East is a highly politically motivated move. It stands to reason that Bellamy showering Clarke with attention, praise, and respect is just as important to the unification of the realm, if not more so, than arming the North. There are, after all, few towns in the North. It's mostly wilderness and wilds. The west is bustling and full. Losing the North would mean losing very little, but losing the west, the south, or the East could destroy the entire kingdom. 

Not that Lexa is helping in that regard. 

She rolls onto her shoulder and heaves a sigh. She can see the lightened purple sky along the horizon through the windows of the barracks. Soon, maybe even now, soldiers will begin to rise and report to their posts, ready themselves for morning training with Lexa. She hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep all night. 

Lexa groans and pulls herself into a sitting position on her mat and rubs her eyes with the back of her hands. Her eyes are sore and closing them sends a fire through her face that burns in the back of her head. It’s going to be a long and painful day and she already knows she’ll spend most of it struggling to stay awake. She still has some time before the other soldiers will rise and Lexa wonders if she has enough time to sneak into Clarke’s chambers. Probably not, but the thought of seeing Clarke after the hellish day she had in dealing with Pike sends a warm, calming feeling through her body that she can't explain. 

Lexa rolls out of bed, opens the trunk at the end of her mat, and changes quickly into her uniform; tunic, pants, leather shoes and a belt all in black as well as a  paludamentum of silver-white, the same color of the flowers of the Elysian fields, to represent her individual rank as the King’s Shield. At the bottom of her trunk is a black cloak and Lexa quickly and quietly pulls this on as well. Spring has been warm this year but the early mornings are still quite chilly without the warmth of a cloak around her shoulders.

She’s always the first one up, so sneaking out isn't so much an act of sneaking so much as it is a stride of quiet confidence. 

She marches through the inner yards as she always does, rubbing her eyes occasionally when the pain of sleepless nights becomes too much to ignore, but instead turning into the training yard she heads towards the tower that houses the Lady Griffin. Marching up the stairs is slow going and exhausting but she makes decent time in spite of this, and quietly marches down the hall towards Clarke’s room.

Lexa raps her knuckles gently against the door and then pushes it open. 

Clarke is still asleep, curled on her side and breathing in deep and rhythmic breaths that give her an aura of irreproachability and purity. Lexa is careful to shut the door behind her without waking Clarke and toe walks across the room so that she can sit on the edge of the bed. She runs her fingers through Clarke’s hair slowly, gently stirring the woman awake as her calloused fingers trail down her cheek and across her jaw.

“Good morning,” she whispers. 

Clarke smiles as she stirs, rolling onto her back and reaching a hand out from beneath the blankets to touch the hand against her cheek. “Morning,” she whispers back.

Lexa leans over Clarke and kisses her softly. “Sorry I’m a whole day late,” she says.

“ Mnn ,” Clarke  gruffs , stretching her arms over her head. “It’s not your fault. Besides, you're here now.” She wraps her arms sleepily around Lexa’s neck and pulls her down into the bed. 

Lexa falls into the feathers, allowing herself to be enveloped in the plush mattress and the scent of Clarke upon it. She’s swept away with everything that is Clarke, the warmth of her skin and the sweetness of her lips against her own, her hair falling around them like golden sheets and the softness of her breasts pressed up against her. Lexa’s hands find purchase around the small of Clarke’s waist and she pulls the woman atop her, sinking deeper into the feather mattress. 

A breath escapes her and Clarke laughs something tender and warm against her ear. For a moment, there’s nothing but her, Clarke, and the feather bed that envelopes around them, all Lexa’s worries and woes melting away at the sound of Clarke’s breathy laugh.

They get tangled in the sheets; Clarke under them, Lexa over them, Lexa under Clarke and Clarke over her. It's messy and they’re both wiggling and writhing with the searing intensity of the kisses they share, desperate to get loose from the mess of fabric and have more control. Lexa eventually submits the fight, letting her body sink into the bed, sink into Clarke, and above her Clarke smiles wickedly with victory, kissing moving down Lexa’s jaw and neck.

Clarke’s lips trail back up, her teeth grazing against her neck and eliciting a shiver from Lexa that rolls down her spine. Lexa’s hands travel south, around the curve of Clarke hips and lower still to her ass. She’s never touched here before, and Clarke smiles something wicked and sinisterly aroused at the touch that makes Lexa shiver again and squeezes her fingers around Clarke. But it’s always just as things begin to heat up like this that Lexa finds her mind wandering back to her sense of duty and the sick feeling of betrayal that grows in the pit of her stomach. 

If she were truly a woman of honor, she never would have allowed things to progress this far, and she knows this, and so a part of her has conceded to defeat. Acceptance that she will never be again worthy of the titles and the honor that befalls a member of the  Kingsglaive , let alone the Shield of the King. But the part of her that has wanted nothing more than to be the greatest knight in the realm, the part of her that has existed since she was just a small girl in the south, watching a war rage around her, begged her to stop. That this, whatever she had left, is still salvageable. That she can still make this right. 

Clarke must be able to sense or feel her hesitations as she’s broken their kiss now and is looking at her with the softest expression of concern Lexa has ever received. “What’s wrong?” she asks, running her thumbs along Lexa’s cheeks. 

Lexa shakes her head. “It’s nothing, my Lady,” she lies. “Just thinking about how comfortable your bed is.”

Clarke rolls off of Lexa and onto her side, one leg draping over her as she draws patterns on Lexa’s chest. “You deserve chambers of your own,” Clarke says. “You’re the King’s shield, not some common soldier.”

“I belong in the barracks with my soldiers,” Lexa says. “Though I won’t argue that our conditions are... not as I would like them to be.”

“I’m going to talk to Bellamy,” Clarke says without hesitation. 

“My Lady,” Lexa pleads.

“I am,” she says, matter-of-fact. “In  Aerofall our soldiers slept on beds, not flea-infested straw. I cannot sit by and watch as the realm’s most powerful army is treated like bastards in the slums.”

Lexa kissed her slowly and gently, breaking away after several moments only to say, “You are too kind, my Lady.”

“You deserve better,” Clarke says.

“I really don’t,” Lexa argues, because as far as she is concerned, she deserves so much worse. Every day she is not caught is a that adds to her betrayal, and the worse her betrayal, the more she believes she deserves whatever punishment may befall her. Be it sleeping with fleas, a war in the north she cannot prevent, or a public execution by the King himself.

Clarke frowns again. “I’m going to talk to Bellamy,” she says. “No knight of the war deserves to live within conditions like that. You’re a hero, Lexa. You deserve to live like one.”

Lexa nods, seeing the point of arguing to be moot. Clarke wouldn’t understand anyway. Sure, she’s betraying her king just as Lexa is in meeting like this, but Clarke is not Lexa. She’s a woman of the west who Bellamy agreed to marry for politics. Lexa is his right hand, his shield, his confidante and his friend. She has betrayed her king in more ways than Clarke ever could, and she’s betrayed the very oaths she has given her life to uphold. Lexa deserves nothing, especially not Clarke. 

Clarke deserves so more than a knight who can’t keep her oaths. She deserves someone who is kind and honest, who will treat her like the queen she is to be. Bellamy can be that for her; Lexa knows this, Clarke knows this, but Clarke continues to choose her anyway, and Lexa continues to choose Clarke. It’s as if, in the end, these fleeting moments between them are worth more than a lifetime of honor. And she doesn’t understand it, she can’t begin to fathom it, this idea that a person – a single person – means more to her than anything else she’s ever wanted or ever done. 

She wants Clarke despite it all, and Clarke, for whatever reason, wants her too.

♕

“What do you think?” Bellamy asks as he trots over to the stables where Lexa stands watching. “The stallion or the mare?” It is a question Bellamy had been debating between for days, often alternating between the two horses and running them through their paces. On the one hand, the stallion was large and strong, but for jousting, lithe speed and stamina had its merits. 

“Jousting is your specialty, your Highness,” Lexa says for what feels like the tenth time today. “Not mine.” The tournament is only days away and the king has spent near every free moment preparing for his chance at momentary glory before his soon to be wife. It’s annoying, Lexa must admit, but she’s grateful that the king is more absorbed in his self-image than actually getting to know Clarke because it means that his time spent with Clarke is minimal at best. Which, she knows, is a selfish thought, but she can’t help but think it.

Bellamy pulls on the reins, his horse backing up a few paces. “I’m leaning towards the mare,” he says. “She’s every bit as steadfast as my warhorse, but faster and more agile.”

“A fair choice, your Highness,” Lexa agrees. “The mare then.”

Bellamy frowns. “Then again,” he says trotting forward and in a tight circle with his horse. “There’s a power with the Stallion that just... you don’t get from a horse not bread for war.”

“But this is not war,” Lexa reminds. “This is a tourney.”

“What do you think would most impress my Lady Clarke?” he asks, curious eyes gleaming down at Lexa from his perch atop his horse. “A faster horse, or the horse I rode into the war that crowned me king?”

Lexa swallows thickly, pushing the thoughts of Clarke seeing Lexa atop her own horse from her mind. Lexa only had use of a warhorse; a fine mare that she rode into battle alongside the largest and strongest stallions. She preferred the size and speed of her horse to the strength and power to a war bred stallion. But speed was Lexa’s strength; speed of body, speed of mind. She has never been able to hold her own in a battle of strength alone, she is too small to compare herself to the men that challenge her on raw physical strength and her choice in horse mirrored this. She chose to ride in fast and low, attack first with unrivaled speed and leave strength to the men who were too slow to keep up. She was not like Bellamy, who had near a dozen horses all his own, each for a different purpose. 

What would Clarke think of her mare? Of Lexa riding atop her with such comfort and ease that they had long ago become one being of body and mind. Would she understand that? Or would she only see a knight atop a horse? 

“I do not know if Lady Clarke would even know the difference between the two, your Highness. But this mare was bred for jousting. You would be foolish to not take advantage of that.”

Bellamy laughs and says, “The mare it is, then. I will unseat many a knight with her help!”

Lexa nods at the King’s declaration. “I look forward to seeing it, your Highness.”

Bellamy reaches down and pats his horse with a look of confidence. Then he looks to Lexa and smiles. “Mount your horse, Lexa. I want to gauge her speed against that prized horse of yours.”

Lexa nods again and retreats into the stables to fetch her horse. She greets the mare like an old friend, rubbing her nose and whispering hello as she searched around for her saddle. She rarely got to ride her horse these days, and it feels like ages ago that she last sat atop her horse, comfortable and steady. Her position as the King’s shield, her position with the  Kingsglaive , leaves no time for riding unless the day calls for training atop horseback. Even then, Lexa and her horse rarely find time to participate, as she’s too busy surveying the field and training her soldiers to partake herself.

Grooming her horse, these days, seems like the only time she gets to have with her horse. But since the arrival of the King’s Consort, even Lexa’s horse has been neglected in favor of time with Clarke. For this, Lexa feels guilty and ashamed and as she readies her mare to ride, she apologizes again and again for ignoring her closest friend for so long. 

“It’s been far too long, girl,” she says as she mounts her horse. “I hope that this will be enough to warrant forgiveness.”

She rides the horse in a slow walk out of the stables and into the open field where Bellamy sits in waiting. However, he is not alone in waiting, and has been joined by two soldiers of the  Kingsglaive , Lady Abigail, and Lady Clarke. 

“We have an audience,” Bellamy announced with pleasure. 

“So, we do,” Lexa says, veering her horse around in a serpentine path to warm them up for the paces Bellamy has set for them to run. She steals a glance at Clarke as she takes her horse through the turning exercise, watching the way she smiles at Bellamy and chats idly with him and her mother. She hears Bellamy laugh at something, his cheerful chime hitting like an  offkey bell against Lexa’s ears. 

Her horse veers left, then right, they turn around and Lexa walks her backward and forwards, serpentines again. Her horse feels good, lithe and ready and itching for a good run and, as fast as Bellamy’s royal bred mare may be, she knows it would be no match against her trusty steed in a true test. But this, Lexa knows, isn’t a true test of speed and stamina. The only purpose of this test is to convince Bellamy that his Mare is the best horse to impress Clarke with, and that, unfortunately for Lexa, means losing this race.

“I’m ready when you are,” Bellamy tells her with a smile. “A lap around the ring should suffice. Wouldn’t you agree?”

She follows Bellamy to where they will start, her soldiers and the ladies standing off to the side to mark the end of one successful lap around the ring. “Don’t hold back,” he tells her. And then with the King’s countdown, they’re off.

Lexa snaps her reigns, kicking her heels into her horse and blasting out into a sprinting gallop. She leans forward with her horse, the wind  tornadoing through her wild hair as she pushes her horse forward with as much momentum as she can muster from her . 

Bellamy is hot on her heels and gaining momentum with every clomp of hooves against the earth. She can see him out of the corner of her eye, leaning into his ride much the same way she has and letting his mare carry him forward to an ever more  possible victory. 

Lexa whips her head around and looks at Bellamy. Behind him she can see Clarke standing at the  now finish mark, her hands clasp together over her chest, standing on her toes and probably holding her breath if Lexa had to guess. She wonders who she’s rooting for. Bellamy, probably. At least out loud. But would she root for Lexa in secret if she could? 

They reach the first turn and Lexa spurs her horse again,  pushing a greater distance between her and Bellamy.  Both horses nearly skid through the turn, hooves clomping and kicking up dirt behind them and though she’s pushed her horse for more, Bellamy is having little trouble keeping pace. His horse starts gaining on her again when they reach the next straight stretch of land and by the time they reach the second and final turn, they’re neck and neck.

Bellamy casts her a determined glance and Lexa meets it with one of her own. She has only moments to decide her path here. To wipe the floor with him the way she does with the sword, or to boost his ego and fall short of victory for the sake of ending this painful debate between two horses. Does she give Bellamy victory in Clarke’s eyes? Or does she steal it for herself?

She pulls back on the reigns just as they reach the finish point and Bellamy plummets past her, claiming his victory and his prize. He dismounts from his horse, jumps to the ground before she’s even slowed to a halt, and whips Clarke up into his arms in an adrenaline-fueled rush of confidence, spinning her around while he laughs and cheers himself on. 

“And the crowds go wild,” he laughs, slowing his spin and setting Clarke back on the ground. “This tourney is going to be fantastic, Clarke, just you watch!”

Lexa purses her lips from her perch atop her horse and averts her gaze from the sight of Clarke and Bellamy. She hates the way he smiles at her; the way Clarke smiles back. And she knows it’s foolish and stupid of her to feel this way, to feel as if Clarke’s smile is reserved just for her, but she does. Seeing Clarke with her soon to be husband makes her stomach twist into knots and bile run up her throat, even if it is exactly as things should be. 

She should be happy for the King, happy for Clarke, that the two seem to get along. That this political marriage between the East and West might actually lead to a strong alliance and a happy marriage. She should be happy for the King, that he might produce an heir and, through the strength of the alliance formed by his marriage, raise that heir in a time of peace and prosperity. 

But she’s not, and she knows it’s wrong of her, but this feeling gets in her chest at the sight of them together is tightening around her throat and squeezing the air from her lungs. She tightens her hands around the reigns, feeling the rolled leather pressing hard lines into her flesh at the pressure of her tightly wound fists.

She swallows thickly, her jaw turning to steel as she raises her chin and looks forward. Clarke is Bellamy’s, not hers, and it is not her place to question or feel anything in regards to that. She is a soldier of the  Kingsglaive , the Shield of the King. Women are a distraction from her duties and have no place in the life of a soldier. These are the things she tells herself, but even as she recites them in her mind, she fails to take it to heart.

Bellamy walks over to Lexa and pats her horse. “You should run her more,” he says. “I’ve seen her at her best and that was certainly not it.”

Lexa bobs her chin and says, “I should, but there is no time, Your Highness. Duty takes priority over luxuries.”

“Either way,” Bellamy says, ignoring Lexa and turning to his mare. “I think we’ve decided on my horse for the tourney, don’t you think? And I’ve already impressed the lady. Just imagine how good I’ll look after I unseat a few knights!”

“You’re sure to be the talk of the kingdom, your Highness.”

“Do me a favor, will you, Lexa?” Bellamy asks, even though any request he makes will  undoubtedly be fulfilled, asked or not. “Bring my horse back to the  stablehands with your own, I’m going to walk Lady Clarke and her mother back to the castle.”

Lexa nods and watches as Bellamy turns his back and swaggers over to Clarke, bursting with newfound pride and confidence in himself as he offers the lady his arm and sweeps her away.

♕

It’s a particularly hot and humid day when the tournament finally begins.

Lexa rides via horseback to the list, a few paces behind her King and the Lady Clarke. She’s slightly to the left of the King’s position, her dual swords clinking against one another from the canter of the horse and drawing attention from the crowds of commoners come to see the line of Knights traveled from across the Realm to participate in the future Queen’s tournament.

What looks like a hundred or more pavilions have been raised between the river and the common folk who have come to view the tournament, and the splendor of it all is breathtaking even for someone as used to royal frivolity and parties as Lexa. There is shining armor decorating ever horse, caparisoned in silver and gold and the color of great and mighty houses, the shouts of crowds greeting each and every soldier who has at least half a dozen or so songs written about their victories in the war and Lexa wonders what Clarke thinks of it all as she rides in alongside the King himself for the first time. Is it better than the songs they sing? It is everything she’s ever dreamed of and more?

“Lexa,” Bellamy says as he dismounts from his horse, his gleaming white armor shining in the sun, “Since you insist on not participating, would you escort the Lady to her seat so that I can ready my steed for the games?”

Lexa hands the reins of her horse to a stable master and nods, placing her right fist over her chest and saying, “She’s in good hands, you Highness. Best of luck out there.”

“I don’t need luck,” he says, smiling to Clarke. “I have skill.”

Clarke smiles back and wishes the King good luck, placing a delicate kiss upon his cheek that makes Lexa’s stomach churn. “Well, you have my luck regardless,” she says. “May  Dorali bless you.”

The king turns to leave, flanked by three of her  Kingsglaive soldier towards his tent in preparation of the games and Lexa watches him go with professional stoicism. She glad to be with Clarke, and even happier to be so without Bellamy’s presence looming over them, but the crowds are thick and the Lady is known. Too many eyes and too many shadows watching for them to act as if they’re alone.

“Shall we?” Clarke asks once the king is gone from sight. “I’d like to be seated before the games begin.”

“Very well, my Lady,” Lexa says. “This way.”

Clarke sits with the rest of the royal court in comfortable chairs with plenty of space between them and nothing to obstruct their view from the action. They’re raised up on a platform near the center of the stands, Clarke’s seat being just off-center and beside Bellamy’s empty seat.

Lexa takes her position as Clarke’s guard behind and between the seats of the King and Queen and it is here that she stands for the great majority of the games. She remains silent as stone, still as calm water, her breath all that keeps her rooted to her position and the realities of the tourney.

Clarke watches with exactly the reaction Lexa knows Bellamy is hoping for and gasps and cheers at all the right places. Sometimes she would ask Lexa a question; who a person was or what they had done to earn the title of Knight themselves, and it was then that Lexa would lean forward, speak softly against Clarke’s ears, and explain each and every knight seated and unseated from the games. They watched  Ser Lincoln unseat  Ser Gustus , King Bellamy unseat  Ser Indra , and  Ser Anya unseat  Ser Tristan, and other knights from across kingdom battling with pointed, wooden lances for the chance of praise and glory, each battle with its own flair and excitement that has the crowds roaring for more. 

The jousting went on all day, the hooves of the great warhorses pounding down the lists until the field was nothing but a ragged wasteland of torn earth. Time and time again Clarke gasped with the crowds as riders crashed together, lances exploding into splinters. Around them, people began cheering for their favorites, and while most of the voices thrown to the wind were commoners, several noble Lords and Ladies threw in their voices too.

Bellamy is back in the list now, waving to the crowds with an armored hand, smiling the way he does that enamors the people and quells their worries and were Clarke just any woman sent to marry the king, she would point this out, praise her king and all he does for the people of the kingdom. But Clarke isn’t just any high lady, she Clarke, and Lexa feels the tearing conflict of competition and servitude eating her alive.

“The King has to unseat Anya this round if he’s to make it to the finals,” says a lord of King Bellamy’s court to Clarke. “What a tournament this has been! You forget how strong and talented that man is when he spends all his time sitting on that throne of his. But this? If he wins this, people will remember well what sort of man sits upon the  Arkadian throne.”

Lexa purses her lips and looks ahead, watching as Anya trots out into the field atop her warhorse. Anya is a fine soldier and fierce in battle, but tournaments and games are far from her strong suit. She doesn’t fight fair and restricting her with rules and stipulations only succeeds in hindering her performance. In fact, Lexa found herself more than a little surprised at Anya’s repeated victories given what she knows about the women's strengths and weaknesses. Still, as much as she wants to root for her soldier, she knows that Anya is no match for Bellamy in a challenge like this.

Even with Anya’s victories, she was no master of the tilt, and Bellamy unseated her with ease, unhorsing her so violently that she flew backward off her horse with her legs dangling like scarecrow’s straw-stuffed limbs through the air. Her head hits the ground with an audible crack that makes the crowds gasp and Lexa surges just a step forward as if ready to run into the list as if Anya were a fallen comrade in battle. Moments pass and Anya eventually moves again, the crowds releasing a unified sigh of relief and when she climbs to her feet, the commoners cheer loudly and wildly for the  Kingsglaive knight unseated by the King. More so even, than for the King’s glorious victory.

“My lady,” Lexa says leaning forward. “Perhaps you should meet the King at his pavilion before his joust in the finals.”

Clarke nods and allows Lexa to escort her down to the King’s pavilion, a large and grand tent of gold and red silk. The entrance displays the King’s royal crest and is guarded by two members of Lexa’s forces who jerk up into a salute and then a bow as Clarke and Lexa approach. 

“The King is preparing for his final joust, my Lady,” says one of the guards. “He has asked that no one disturb him until it is time to mount his horse.”

“I’m certain he will make an exception for the Lady,” Lexa says, and draws back the silken curtain doors for Clarke to enter. ‘I will be waiting for you right outside, my Lady.” 

Clarke disappears into the tent and Lexa stands awkwardly beside her soldiers, none of them bothering to speak or look at one another while they wait. Finally, after several long moments of silence between them, one of them asks quietly, “Do you think Lincoln will throw the match against the King?”

“He’d be stupid not too,” says the other. ‘What about you Commander? What do you think?”

Lexa is inclined to agree, but she knows better than to say things that might upset the king out loud. She settles instead for, “The King will walk away the winner of this tourney regardless of what Lincoln does,” and shuts her soldiers up immediately with the harshness of her tone.

They continue to wait. Lexa taps her finger against the hilt of one of her swords, counting the minutes as they pass to keep herself distracted from the reality that Clarke was alone with a very ego boosted King. Time moves at a crawl and the sun beats heavy down on Lexa’s partially armored frame. She’s sweaty and parched, and dreadfully bored, but manages to keep herself distracted by pretending to harshly evaluate the performances of the two soldiers stationed with guarding the king’s pavilion. 

After a while, though, even this grows boring and Lexa submits to the boredom just as the crowd near the list roars with life to announce the climatic end of the Lincoln’s most recent tilt. Lincoln is the best jouster Lexa has ever seen and she doesn’t need to be there to know by the lack of uproar that he walked away, again, unscathed.

Lexa opens the curtains again, swallowing thickly as she pressed into the tent and announced, “The joust has ended, your Highness. It is time for the final round.”

Bellamy is close, so very close to Clarke. His finger curled under her chin and tilting it up to his and Lexa feels her ears grow hot at the sight of intruding on something so personal between them. But Bellamy doesn’t seem bothered, instead he kisses the lady on the cheek, smiles, and erupts with laughter that booms like a storm. “Lexa, don’t act so prudish,” he says. “There’s nothing to see. Just me spending some time with my lovely queen to be.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she says quickly. 

“And you didn’t,” he assures. “Now, I have a tournament to win. Would you escort the lady back to her seat?”

“Of course, your highness.”

Bellamy exits the pavilion, marching confidently out through the silken sheet doors and back towards the field. There was maybe, half an hour to wait between now and the next match, and the walk back would take at least a third of that time. But alone here with Clarke with no eyes or ears upon them for the first time in days, Lexa can’t help herself when Clarke looks at her with her bottom lip tangled between her teeth. She’s hasn’t touched Clarke in days, and she needs to change that. She has too, while she still has the chance.

Lexa steps forward, her hand reaching for Clarke. She finds her, fingers curling around her and pulling her into a much needed, long overdue hug. She marvels at the feeling of Clarke against her. She’s grateful now that only her forearms, shoulders and shins are armored, the feeling of Clarke’s body against her own sending a surge of heat into her core that turns into a shiver when Clarke finally captures Lexa in a heated, hungry kiss. 

Her  hands act on their own accord, snaking around Clarke’s waist and pulling her in deeper and deeper, begging for Clarke to give her more . She obliges in Lexa’s wanting and  there is a certainty and purpose in the glide of her lips, giving her everything and so much more with a kiss so deep , so heated , Lexa thinks she’s kissing fire itself. 

Lexa pulls away, breathless and speechless and more than her share of anxious knowing that all that separates them from discovery is a thin veil of silk where her own soldiers and thousands of commoners sit just on the other side waiting for a show. Her eyes flutter across Clarke’s features, her hooded eyes and blown pupils, her glistening, parted lips. She’s just about to muster her courage and come in to kiss her when Clarke takes the initiative again. 

Again, Lexa swells with everything Clarke, her touch, her smell, her taste. It’s like an addiction she can never satisfy, each encounter deepening her cravings and leaving her begging for more. But something feels different than usual. Maybe it’s because Clarke too is nervous about their location, their risky predicament that neither have the strength fight. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Either way, the way Clarke sucks on her lower lip and tangles her fingers so deep in Lexa’s hair that she can feel her nails on her scalp... it’s needier, hungrier, more desperate than it’s ever been before.

Lexa breaks the kiss again despite the longing she feels for Clarke’s tongue to dance with her own. Something is just too off, too different and she can’t ignore the pressing feeling that something might be wrong. “Are you alright? Did something happen?”

Clarke shakes her head. “No,” she says. “I just...” her lip finds itself tangled between her teeth again. “I don’t want it to be Bellamy.”

Lexa stares at Clarke, confused and concerned. “Did he do something to you?”

“Nothing a man isn’t allowed to do to his wife,” Clarke assures with a frown. “His touch,” she shudders, “I don’t like it. It’s nothing like yours. He’s... he’s not you, Lexa.”

Somehow, knowing that Clarke would choose her if she could, it swells like pride within her. Lexa sweeps Clarke into a kiss, unafraid for the first time at the thought of getting caught, concerned only for the notion that the touch Clarke craves is her own. 

She lets her hands feel their way across the expanse of Clarke’s body, her fingers trailing from her back, up the seams of her dress and over her breasts. Clarke gasps at the touch but is back to kissing her in an instant. They stumble back, Clarke’s hands finding purchase on a piece of oaken furniture and holding them in place. 

Lexa lets her fingers roam. One hand trailing up to touch Clarke’s face while the other slides down her dress, gliding down her abdomen over silken fabric. One leg pins between Clarke’s and she’s grabbing fabric by the handful, pulling Clarke’s dress up to expose her glorious legs. 

“Gods,” Clarke breathes, gasping again , her breath hot against Lexa’s skin.

Lexa pushes up against Clarke, her  leg sliding up between Clarke’s thighs and eliciting a moan the likes she’s never heard escape Clarke’s lips before.  She pressed a hand over her mouth, shushes her softly and begins to plant her lips down the side of Clarke’s exposed neck. 

“Quiet,” Lexa whispers between kisses. “My soldiers are right outside.”

Clarke pulls her lips away from Lexa hand and nips playfully at her fingers. “So  _ dismiss _ them,” she says, humming another moan as Lexa’s lips continue to trail down her neck. 

She wants to, gods, she wants to. But doing that is too suspicious. The logical thing to do is to stop. The logical thing to do is to escort Clarke back to the list so that she can watch Bellamy’s joust with Lincoln before anyone notices that they’re gone, that they’re still inside Bellamy’s pavilion. But Lexa isn’t thinking logically, not when Clarke is pressed up against her, squirming and moaning and desperately clawing at her for more.

“We should stop,” she says, more to herself than to Clarke, but Clarke isn’t having it. She grabs Lexa’s face and presses their lips together again. 

“Shut up,” she tells her and Lexa obliges. 

They're in an awkward position, Lexa pressed between Clarke’s legs and Clarke pressed against a table, but somehow, they’re making it work. Clarke hooks a leg around Lexa and Lexa’s fingers travel up her dress and across her thighs. Clarke gasps as she treads higher, higher than she’s ever gone before, and bites down hard on her lower lip to keep herself from making any more noise.

Lexa shifts, seeking better footing and leg slides deeper between Clarke’s thighs and brushes against her wetness. Clarke jumps at this, and Lexa is frozen with an intense bout of fear the like’s she’s never experienced. Has she done something wrong? Has she finally taken things too far?

Clarke’s hand slides into Lexa’s tangled hair and cups the back of her neck, pulling her closer and breaking Lexa from her icy pause. “Yes,” Clarke breathes, and there’s a heat to her words that melts the ice on Lexa’s skin and encourages her to press her thigh more firmly upwards, rocking slow and steady against her.

Clarke arches against her, grinding down on Lexa’s leg and pressing herself near flush against her. She cries out another moan, rolling her hips down and up Lexa’s leg as Lexa begins a slow trail of kisses from her earlobe to her chest, licking and kissing a nipping along her neck. There’s a chorus of need whines that come from her and Lexa thinks as to herself that she could hear this song forever, if only it weren’t for the guards outside her tent.

“Quiet,” she says again, using a much more commanding tone than she’s ever used on someone of such high stature and nobility before, but Clarke isn’t listening. Or maybe, she simply can’t hear at all.

“Lexa,” Clarke whines, and the way she says her name with supplication, the way she says it as if it’s the name of the gods, lights a fire on Lexa’s skin that travels into her core. She feels Clarke’s hand pull on her hair, guiding her gaze up to look into Clarke’s eyes, those ocean blues alight with desire so deep that Lexa nearly drowns in it. “I need—” 

“I know,” Lexa says, taking the words as the invitation they are, as the consent she needs to finally give in to the desire they have both been fighting for months.

Lexa untangles the buckles of her  vambrace with her teeth and yanks off the armor around her hand and forearm. She throws it aside and hikes up more of Clarke’s dress, snaking her arm under the fabrics between Clarke’s wanting thighs. She knew she was wet, but she still finds herself shocked with how absolutely, wonderfully soaked she is by the time Lexa actually touches her. Lexa  whispers an awestruck 'oh gods' and at the same time Clarke lets out a glorious, quiet moan over Lexa's fingers finally exploring her.

She takes her time spreading Clarke’s lips, fully engrossed in the marvelous way they suck on her fingertips and the way Clarke nearly shivers with each precise and careful stroke. She works her thumb into the mix, finding the bundle of nerves buried in her folds and swipes careful, explorative circles that makes Clarke’s quiet moans grow sharp and desperate.

Lexa can’t cup a hand over her mouth this time. She’s got one against the table holding them in place and the other cupping Clarke in the most intimate of ways and with nothing else to quiet the soon to be queen, she captures Clarke’s lips in her own in a slow, lazy kiss. Clarke’s tongue dances with hers, licks the roof of her mouth as her teeth graze against her bottom lip. It’s sloppy and slow and lacks Lexa’s usual precision and grace, but she’s so distracted now by the feeling of Clarke around her fingers that she doesn’t care.

Her brain finally registers the scent of her arousal, and Lexa manages to think with what few functional brain cells she has that she smells as wonderful as she looks; pulchritudinous. It’s musky and sweet and Lexa wants nothing more than to drop to her knees and drink all Clarke has to offer, but there’s no time for that and Clarke is scratching hungrily at her neck and moaning gloriously into her mouth and pleading for more and Lexa, is, after all, a knight in service to the crown. She can’t very well leave Clarke wanting and waiting.

It takes her thumb returning to Clarke’s clit, drawing uneven and shaking circles while two fingers corkscrew into her to for Clarke to finally tear away from Lexa’s lips and when she does, she opens her mouth in a silent scream that wreaks havoc through her body and sends her shivering and crumpling in to Lexa’s hold and the oaken table that Lexa’s pinned down into the earth.

She’s gone past the point of no return now. There is no honor in what she’s done and as the King’s Consort comes around her fingers Lexa knows that she will never again be able to hold herself to the esteemed regard she once commanded. She could never look her King in the eyes with honesty and trust. But she doesn’t care. She’s gone too far, and there’s no going back .


	3. Chapter 3

Her mother is sewing her a wedding dress. 

In Aerofall it is traditional for a mother to sew her daughter the dress for which they are to wear for their wedding, even among the richest and more noble families. It is a tradition held not only in the small mountain town Clarke calls home, but across all of the western lands. 

In Aerofall, however, it the color and style of the dress that differs from the rest. Each region has its own fashion and in the Crown City, warm colors reign dominant among wedding dresses. Red’s oranges, golds and whites, all popular colors in Elysia and the surrounding cities. Their dresses are intricate, with several patters and more than one style of fabric, often sewn by professional seamstresses in which money is the ultimate factor. For Aerofall, there is only one color – sapphire blue – and Clarke’s mother has been swimming in the fabric for weeks as she pours her heart and soul into the perfect dress for her daughter. 

Her mother is pinning things down, making Clarke demo the dress in it’s very unfinished state, making sure that the fit is just right and the fabric folds and drapes off her body in perfect waves. It’s all very boring and uncomfortable and Clarke really would rather be doing anything else than stand around in what is to be her wedding dress while talking about Bellamy with her mother, but she hasn’t talked to her mother much in weeks and she feels a sense of obligation to the older woman. To let her know that she is happy, safe, and content with the man her mother and Lord Kane have shipped her off to marry. 

“What do you think, Clarke?” Her mother asks as she pinches the fabric behind Clarke’s back. “Too tight, too loose?” 

Clarke twists a little in her partially formed dress and shrugs. “It feels fine,” she drawls. What does it matter anyway, she’s only wearing this thing for one day. 

She twists again and looks at Lexa in the corner of the room. “What do you think?” 

Lexa opens her eyes, her lovely, verdant eyes. She’s been standing in the corner for hours, leaned up against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes shut, inattentive and hardly there, the way a soldier should be. But Clarke is simply happy that Lexa is here, seeing her in her dress before anyone else. 

Lexa eyes trail down and back up Clarke’s figure in a slow, lazy path that lingers on all of Clarke’s most intimate places; the exposed skin of her legs, her hips, her bosom, her neck and finally, her lips. Lexa licks her lips, purses them, and averts her gaze. “You look radiant, my Lady,” she says, turning pink and trying to hide it by ducking into the shadows of the corner she’s occupying. 

Clarke’s mother laughs. “Well, with a reaction like that then I must be doing something right!” She places her hands on her hips and lets the fabric she had been holding fall around Clarke’s form. “Radiant! Not exactly what I was looking for but certainly not outside of the realm of appropriate responses. Oh, I hope Bellamy thinks the same.” 

“As do I, Mother,” Clarke says, automatically, her eyes finding Lexa and searching for a hint of the woman she knows hiding behind the stony exterior of a well-trained soldier. “As do I.” 

♕ 

Despite being the King’s shield, Lexa has spent an awful lot of time at Clarke’s side as of late, and not by her choice – by the King’s. 

According to Bellamy, only the best and most trustworthy will do in protecting his soon to be queen, and ensuring she is well taken care of in his absence, only Lexa is fit for such a position. Ironic, Clarke thinks, as taking care of her is exactly what Lexa does best. 

Most of time they are within the presence of another. Clarke reads her books, wanders the gardens, pets the cats that make the castle their home. Lexa watches, stares, and follows like a silent storm. She often dons the paint of war over her face, long black claws that drip over the apples of her cheeks like black gashes in her face that make her eyes pop and intensify. She is rarely the woman Clarke has come to know privately, and for all intents and purposes, she is very well fine with that. 

Simply being in Lexa’s presence feels like a gift. She can’t explain it, not really, but being anywhere that Lexa isn’t wracks her with a deep pain in the pit of her chest made worse only by the crippling realization that her wedding to a man she feels nothing towards is looming overhead. She needs to be near Lexa, constantly. She needs to know that the woman is watching her, protecting her, pining for her. She needs to know that in a moment's notice, she can feel the hot touch of Lexa’s fingers along her skin, feel the heat of her lips against her own. 

But these are just moments she craves; they are not however the moments they attain. 

Most of time Lexa keeps her distance, one hand on the hilt of one of her two swords and her eyes cast forward. Most of the time, Lexa follows several paces behind her, her greaves pressing into the cobblestone like a shadow rattling behind her. Most of the time Lexa doesn’t even look at her. But she knows, deep down she knows, that every moment of torture for Clarke, Lexa is feeling it too. 

Today, she knows, is no different. 

It’s been weeks since Lexa last touched her, weeks since she’s felt herself become whole, and mere hours since she last had to satisfy herself in the safety and comfort of her own chambers. But even that, Clarke is learning, is not enough to quell the smoldering embers in the pit of her stomach, the way they burst with life every time Lexa enters a room or casts her a side longed look. 

She’s sitting in a chair, staring down at crooked stitches because Clarke has never been very good at the hobbies and skills of a fine lady, watching from the corners of her eyes as Lexa rests in the corner of the room. She’s got her arms folded over her chest, one foot propped up on the wall behind her, her head dipped low to the floor. She’s not sleeping, she’d never allow herself to succumb to such mediocre work, but she does look like she is. 

Occasionally, Lexa will lift her eyes, look at Clarke and the area that surrounds her, then close them and drift away into silence again, like a statue in the corner of the room. Clarke wishes every time she sees her that she didn’t have to be here, pretending to enjoy herself with the other women of the castle, pretending that sewing is fun. She wishes that she was alone with the soldier who guards her, in her chambers atop her feather bed with Lexa between her legs the way she was in Bellamy’s pavilion on the day of the tournament. 

Everything is messy, just like her stitches. And Clarke knows she should get it together, that she should get over whatever she feels towards Lexa and face her future with grace, the way a lady should. But she can’t. Every thought of Bellamy leads to Lexa, every walk through the castle leads to Lexa, every meal she eats, every conversation she has, every dream... it always leads her back to Lexa. 

Clarke sets down her embroidery project and stretches her arms over her head with a yawn. It’s enough to get Lexa to open her eyes, and she can see the woman staring at her breast through heavy lidded eyes as she twists and pops her spine. “Well,” she says to the women of the room. “This has been fun.” 

“Leaving so soon?” Asks the elderly woman with the most intricate embroidery work Clarke has ever seen lying in her lap. 

Clarke nods. “I was hoping to catch my King in high spirits,” she lies. “Thank you for having me.” She turns to Lexa and smiles. “Shall we?” 

Lexa pushes off the wall and gives Clarke a curt, wordless nod and she lets Clarke take the lead in guiding them out of the room and down the intricately decorated halls of Bellamy’s castle. 

Now that Clarke is growing more familiar with the layout of the Palace, Lexa has been hanging back and letting Clarke take the lead in their walks. She can hear her boots pressing into the stone floor behind her in precise, rhythmic steps; a gentle tune that tells Clarke that she is not alone and should she get lost, Lexa will guide them out. It allows her to walks more confidently, more sure of herself, and more the way a Queen of Arkadia should. 

Lexa never asks Clarke where she’s going. She keeps herself professional and poised at all hours of the day and while that’s great for keeping their jousting escapades hidden from the castle, it’s quite annoying when she blatantly ignores Clarke’s attempts for attention. She used to be pining at every opportunity to touch her, willing to risk everything for something as small as a kiss on Clarke’s hand. Now, weeks have gone by and if anything, she’s stiffened in the public eye. 

Of course, in private, all this changes. 

Clarke guides them through the castle and up the winding stairs to her chambers. It’s the middle of the day, but her retreating to her room for hours at a time is far from uncommon. Before, it was simply because her chambers was the only room she could be herself in, because she had nothing to do and nowhere to be and no King to attempt to woo her. Before, she waited bored and lonely, stared out the window and longed to return home. But now? Now she had a different plan in mind, and no one would be any wiser. 

She stops before her door, spins on her heels and Lexa stops a few paces behind, raising an eyebrow in quizzical curiosity. “My Lady?” she asks, her gaze shifting to the door. 

“Clarke,” she says and she the opens the door. She grabs Lexa’s hand, her black gloved hand, and gently pulls her across the threshold. “When we’re alone, I am no one’s lady.” 

Lexa pushes the door closed with the heel of her boot and the moment Clarke hears the click of the lock she’s wrapping her arms around Lexa’s neck and pulling her across the room. They stumble, Clarke refusing to let her go and Lexa struggling to find her footing with such a desperate hold around her neck, but when Lexa’s lips find hers, they steady. Clarke isn’t sure if she’s feeling the heat of fire from the hearth in her room or if something has sparked with flames deep within her, but she’s growing warmer by the moment, Lexa’s fingers pressing hot into her hips and dragging down her sides and all Clarke wants is to remove the layers of fabric that separate them. 

Her fingers slip away from Lexa’s neck and she grabs Lexa’s hands, yanking the leather gloves away and throwing them over her shoulder. Lexa breathes a laugh and cups Clarke’s face in her hands, kissing her again. “No gloves?” she asks between kisses, breathing the words into Clarke’s mouth. 

“No clothes,” Clarke corrects, and starts pulling at the hem of Lexa’s tunic. 

Lexa breaks away from Clarke and pulls her tunic over her head, casting it aside with a toss and Clarke has only a few moments to take in the beauty of her scarred and muscled frame, her delicate breasts, perking and pointed, before Lexa is pressed up against her again. She pushes Clarke back, her hands grabbing at anything they can reach and Clarke stumbles back against her four-poster feather bed and onto the mattress. 

Lexa stands over her and Clarke marvels at the beauty and strength exuding from Lexa’s form. Even now, she is steadfast and confident, always so sure of herself and the actions she makes. It’s intoxicating, being looked at the way Lexa looks at her, seeing a woman with conviction and determination in her eyes even during these most intimate moments between them. She crawls onto the bed, over Clarke so that her tangled hair is draping like a curtain around their faces. Their noses brush against one another as Lexa tilts her chin and then their lips are touching again. 

Clarke instantly craves more, her body tingling with need and she moans into Lexa’s open mouth, feeling the flick of Lexa’s tongue against the roof of her mouth and her teeth against her lower lip. Their kiss is needy, hot and rushed. It’s as sloppy as it is perfect, and Clarke is reeling with delight as Lexa’s lips find their way to her neck again, her teeth grazing against her with needy, lustful intent. 

She breathes Lexa’s name, and Lexa growls hungrily atop her at the sound of her own name spilling over Clarke’s lips. She pulling at Clarke’s dress, pulling the loose fabric up over her thighs, making quick work her as she wiggles and writhes with hot anticipation below her. It’s been weeks, and Clarke is desperate for more. Apparently, so is Lexa. She feels the hot press of Lexa’s calloused fingers on her thighs, running up the soft skin and digging her nails into her flesh to rake them back down. 

Clarke gasps, but manages to push Lexa away, saying with her best, most stern yet sultry voice she could muster, “No clothes,” she tells her again. 

Lexa smiles and rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she says. She kicks off her boots and unfastens the swords from her hips, the clunk of heavy leather and steel hitting the stone floor sending a chill down Clarke’s spine. “But you too. And you’ve got to be quiet this time.” 

Clarke nods more eagerly than she means to and before Lexa can strip off her pants, she’s wiggled her way out of her dress and tossed it at the end of the bed. 

Lexa is absolutely jaw dropping in the nude, which is saying something because as far as Clarke is concerned, she’s spectacularly attractive at literally every time of the day. She’s like a sculpture, perfectly cast from marble and bronze to highlight every features of human beauty. Her sculpted, almost bulging muscles that flex and pump as she moves, the gentle dip of her waist and the swell of her hips, even the scars that run down her body, all of it – perfectly beautiful. Like the forest in the early autumn. 

Clarke’s mouth touches her bare skin for the first time, her tongue suckling on one of Lexa’s attentive nipples in a way that actually makes Lexa gasps for air and tangles her fingers in Clarke’s hair. Her stoic, powerful soldier, crumbling beneath her tongue’s delicate dance. She peppers kisses across her breasts, up her sternum, her neck, up and up until her lips meet the sensitive space behind Lexa’s ear. 

Lexa allows her the pleasure of making her squirm for only a few moments before pushing Clarke down and pinning her to the bed. She holds her down, smiling devilishly at her as she pins Clarke’s wrists above her head with a single hand and minimal pressure. The whole thing, all of Lexa strength and dominance exuding over her, it drives the heat in her abdomen to spark into a raging flame that warms her entire body and settles between her thighs in a quiet ache. 

Clarke pulls Lexa down, capturing her into another, heated kiss, feeling as Lexa’s fingers roam over her naked body for the first time. Her rough, calloused, gentle touch, sparking wildfires on every surface she touches, every inch of skin set aflame as she drags her fingers up and down her torso. They move up, cup her breasts and Clarke gasps into Lexa’s mouth when her thumbs brush over her nipples. 

“Gods, Lexa,” she says, breaking away from the kiss just enough to whisper into Lexa’s open mouth. “Fuck me already.” 

Lexa presses their lips together again, in a hard, sloppy kiss that quickly begins to move south, down her jawline and her neck, sparks of heat trailing behind where Lexa touches. “As you wish,” she breathes onto Clarke’s stomach, her hot breath lingering on the wet, sloppy kisses that trail down her body. 

She can feel Lexa’s fingers drawing against her thighs, the gentle, soft touch sending a shiver up her spine as Lexa’s kisses continue to drop lower and lower. She swallows a moan, remembering to be quiet, and squirms with anticipation when Lexa’s kisses stop just above her folds. 

She’s about to beg because, being honest with herself, she’s not in the slightest above it. But Lexa must feel her wanting, feel need, because tongue is against now, gliding through her and against her and giving her everything she needs and everything she could ever want all at once. 

Clarke moans, her fingers trailing down to tangle in Lexa’s hair and she’s pressing her hips up into Lexa’s mouth, feeling those sweeping, perfect circles of her tongue. 

Lexa’s hands drift up, grab her hips, pressing fingerprints into her skin before clawing their way up further a twirling lazily over her breasts. She touches her everywhere she can reach, leaves nothing forgotten and nothing left wanting more. And just as Clarke thinks she can bear anymore, as the building within her is ready to burst, Lexa sweeps into a grand finale with her tongue, licking and pressing and twisting and riling Clarke to even greater heights. 

Her back arches, shoulder blades pressing deep into the feather mattress and Clarke throws her arm into her mouth as she gasps out a sharp cry of orgasmic bliss that rides in waves through her body like the oceans in high tide. Lexa brings her down slowly, her touch slowing and tongue growing gentle and lazy and she doesn’t leave Clarke until she’s settled and warm and blissful in the feeling of Lexa’s touch. 

♕ 

Lexa pulls on her boots slowly and carefully, leaning into the firelight and setting her body aglow. 

Clarke watches from the comfort of her bed, still tingling from her orgasm and the pleasure of Lexa’s touch. She smiles warmly, wiggles down into the feathers of mattress, and takes her time appreciating the view she’s been given of Lexa’s half-nude form. 

She’s dressed form the waist down now, looking around Clarke’s chambers for any sign of the tunic she had so passionately tossed aside, her nipples still attentive and perking up, sparking in the firelight and the remnants of Clarke’s mouth upon her skin. Lexa pauses her search, her eyes catching Clarke and Clarke can see the way her eyes trail down her body and back up again, already hungry for more. “Gods. You are absolutely breathtaking,” she says. 

Clarke smiles and feels her cheeks growing warm. Lexa has never complimented her like this before. She’s always so stoic, so professional, so quiet and dutiful. Seeing her, hearing her, express the things that go on in her mind as if she can’t possibly contain them within herself... it feels real, encompassing and warm. Like all Clarke needs is to feel Lexa’s affection to be whole and true. 

Lexa turns again, resumes searching for her tunic. 

“There,” Clarke says, pointing across the room. 

“Thank you,” Lexa says and she pulls the black garment up and out of the shadowy corner of Clarke’s chambers. 

She pulls the tunic over her head, secures her belt, and tucks the shirt into place. Each move is careful and precise, returning herself to a perfect replica of the woman who guards the King and not the woman who lies nude in her bed. All that’s left is her swords, which still lie at the foot of Clarke’s bed, forgotten and abandoned. 

Lexa carefully refastens the swords around her, adjusts the leather straps and how they sit atop her hips, and taps her toes into the stone floor. She smiles, satisfied with how she’s put herself together, and then quietly stalks over to Clarke in bed and leans over to kiss her softly on the cheek. “You should dress too, my Lady,” she whispers. “Can’t have you disappearing for long. Someone might get suspicious.” 

Clarke groans. She’s quite comfortable here in bed, alone with Lexa where she feels free and true. Returning to the falsehoods of her life as the King’s Consort is not on her list of things she’s wanting to do right now. “I guess,” she says, rolling over onto her side and plucking her dress off the floor. 

She dresses herself quietly, her eyes ghosting over to Lexa at every opportunity just to check and see that Lexa was looking at her with those wanting, lovely eyes of hers while she could. She does, of course. She watches Clarke the entire time with a gentle smile and a delicate interest. As if she's looking upon something forbidden, and in truth, isn’t that exactly what Clarke is to Lexa? Something forbidden? 

Lexa steps over and brushes the fabrics of Clarke's dress with her hand, her palm smoothing the wrinkles and gliding down against Clarke in ways that only made her wish they had more time alone. She fixes her hair; fingers threading through it and detangling her the tendrils with gentle tugs. And once Lexa is satisfied with the way they look, she presses a kiss into Clarke’s lips, her fingers pressing into Clarke’s cheeks as she guides her lips against her own. She pulls away again, just as things begin to heat between them, and she says. “We should go.” 

Clarke steals one final kiss, and then leans her back against the door as her fingers search behind her for the knob. She doesn’t want to stop drinking in Lexa until she absolutely has to. Her fingers grasp the knob and she pulls the door open, spinning on her heels before it can bump against her. She looks around the hall, finds its empty, and turns back to Lexa and nods. “We’re good,” she says. “I’ll see you again at dinner?” 

Lexa smiles as she passes Clarke, her fingers finding purchase atop the hilt of her swords the way they usually do and she says. “Should the king see fit. I will be there.” 

♕ 

The King is still reeling with pride over his victory at the tourney, and Clarke isn’t sure how much more boisterous boasting she can physically handle before she explodes. 

According to Lexa, Lincoln threw the tournament at the King’s expense. Couldn’t have him making a fool of himself before all his adoring subjects, after all. But the story that Bellamy weaves is a different one. A gallant, courageous act of which he believes might have been his greatest joust to date. 

Clarke, however, barely remembers the thing. She was so wrapped up in Lexa having taken her in the King’s pavilion that everything after that passed by in a haze. She knows she was present for his victory. She remembers the way he trotted over on his horse and bowed before her, the way he blew her a kiss when he removed his helm and shook out his sweaty, curling locks. But even that is blurry and splotchy and hardly a memory at all. It feels like a story she’s been told so many times she has it memorized, not an event she was personally present for. 

But of course, Bellamy loves to talk about it, and so it is a story she’s heard so many times that she has it indeed memorized. She knows all the best places to react. She knows when he’s expecting her to make a face or gasp or touch his arm. She knows because it’s like a play and she’s got the starring role. 

“Can you believe it?” he asks after finishing the story yet again over dinner. “Me, champion of my own wife’s tournament! What a rush. What a surprise! I half expected to be unseated, but, well—” 

Clarke smiles and says “It was as brilliant match, Bellamy. Really and truly. One of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever experienced,” and the words seem to strike his ego in the right ways. 

Stroking Bellamy’s king-sized ego is something she beginning to grow quite accustomed to. He is kind to her, and generous and sweet, but his ego is bulbous and every action he takes is one that is comes with the expectation for praise and glory. It as if he’s forgotten that the average person isn’t swimming in people whose job is to make them feel good about themselves. That he used to be an average person, with no one to tell him how great he is all the time. 

Clarke supposes that if the worst thing about her future husband is that he’s got a giant head about himself, it could be worse. At least he’s a happy guy, and dumb enough to overlook the occasional glance that Clarke throws Lexa’s way because she has absolutely zero self control when it comes to Lexa. 

She’s grateful that he doesn’t notice, that he’s too absorbed in reliving his glory through tournaments and championships to see the way Clarke bites her cheeks when Lexa looks at her. If he was paying attention, even the most remote attention to detail, she knows that he’s close enough to Lexa that he would be able to tell something’s off. No matter good Lexa is at hiding it. An astute King would be wise to have concerns about the way his shield looks at his bride. But Bellamy is not an astute king, he is a likable king. But being likable isn’t enough. Not for Clarke. Not when Lexa stands by his side. 

Lexa is like the autumn breeze fluttering through her hair. She’s like the colors of changing leaves and the hug of the hearth’s fire during a late-night storm. Bellamy is nothing like her in that way. In any way. He’s like a flower trying to bloom, like birds calling out for a mate. Desperate for attention. 

But Lexa isn’t by his side right now and Clarke has nothing but Bellamy to occupy her mind. So it should be easy to give her future husband her undivided attention. It’s not, and while Bellamy talks about how great his horse selection was for the tournament Clarke finds her thoughts wandering to the memory of his race with Lexa and the way she looked – so comfortable and powerful – atop her war horse. The way her war paint rolled down her cheeks and the way her smile was simple and small. 

She thinks about Lexa’s promise to be present for dinner – so long as the King would have her – and she wonders why Bellamy excluded his most prized soldier and guard from a royal meal. Shouldn’t this be the time in which her presence is most needed? 

“Bellamy,” she starts, her wondering coming aloud. “Where’s your guard?” 

“Who? Lexa?” Bellamy asks. “I’ve asked her to check up on the blacksmiths and see how the forge is fairing. She should be back any time.” 

Clarke feels herself pouting and drops her gaze to her plate, poking at the cuts of meat with her knife instead of letting Bellamy see her visible disappointment with the fact that Lexa is not in attendance for their meal. “Oh,” she says. 

The forges have been hard at work since Bellamy promised castle steel to the men and women of the northern borders. A decision of which has been controversial at best. 

The court seems divided on how to handle the less than friendly neighbors to the north. And as words and rumors travel like the wind through an open field, Clarke has heard many accounts of the tale of Bellamy’s ruling. Some people agree that arming the men of the north is a cost effective way to show the border that the crown stands behind them in their efforts to fend off Azgedan raiders. Others think the king wasted time and money better spent supporting the north on the tournament for which he held in Clarke’s honor. Some people have even gone as far as to give Clarke herself a nasty sort of look when they pass by. As if she had any say or control on the matter at all. 

“Oh?” Bellamy asks, repeating. 

Clarke shrugs. “I’m used to you being surrounded with your work,” Clarke says, finding truth in her lies. “It’s unusual for you to be without guard. Even now.” 

Bellamy laughs. “I have two men posted just outside these doors,” he says. “I am not without guard. I am simply allowing myself privacy with you.” 

She smiles at this, but it feels hollow and lost. 

“I apologize for always seeming busy, Clarke,” he says. “But between organizing your tournament and the growing issues in the North, I’ve been much busier than normal.” 

Clarke presses her lips together and nods. “What issues grow in the north, my King?” 

Bellamy sighs and rubs his head in his hands. “The north feels...neglected by the crown. We’re still in a state of recovery from the last war and I don’t have the resources available to send them the assistance they feel themselves entitled to. Even sending them this Castle forged steel is pressing heavy into the royal funds.” 

Clarke thinks back to the tournament Bellamy had thrown in her honor. How frivolous and extravagant the whole affair had been in the name of honoring House Griffin. He calls it ‘her tournament’, as if she had insisted upon the entire thing. She wonders how it affects the way people look at her, the way they speak of her house, knowing that piles of gold were thrown to the wind in her name when people are coming to the crown from the furthest reaches of the realm, begging for help. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to help more,” Bellamy continues. “But we’re still recovering from the last war. Our resources are already stretched too thin and our relations with Azgeda are rough on a good day. If I reallocate the guard to the border, it’s asking for trouble we’re not prepared to handle.” 

She bites down on her cheeks, grabs her goblet of wine and distracts herself from having to answer Bellamy by draining her cup. She doesn’t know the first thing about kingdom politics and she’s certainly not fit for Bellamy to confide to in regards to his decisions and how they may or may not affect the realm. Clarke’s scope of the world is from the lens of a lady of a tiny town, where their biggest threat was starvation in the winter if they didn’t ration their grain well enough. 

The North... She knew nothing of it. But she did know how torn and ravaged the realm had become in the wake of the war. She did know what the world between the east and the west looked like. She did know that even in the west, the presence of the King’s forces is few and far between. Taking those soldiers from her home to bolster the defenses of their northern border... would it actually help anyone, including the north? 

She’s heard stories about Azgeda. About their ferocity and their harsh ways. Their army is said to be two thirds the size of Arkadia’s but twice as strong. Maybe Bellamy is right to be worried about the relations Arkaida holds with its northern neighbors. Maybe a tournament to convince the people that everything is okay is the only move he can make that doesn’t involve fear and bloodshed. But, what does she know anyway? Maybe she’s rationalizing. Maybe the right move is to send forces north and prepare for the inevitable. 

It is then that the doors to the room swing open and Lexa stalks in, a mess of black with the shining accent of Elysian silver at her back. “My King,” she says as she enters, and Bellamy sets his fork atop his plate at the sound of Lexa’s voice, his attention turning to his trusted Shield. 

“What is it?” He asks, pushing away from the table and meeting Lexa halfway across the room. 

Clarke watches with piqued curiosity as Bellamy dips himself over so that his ear is level with Lexa’s lips. She sees her whisper into his ear, and she almost feel the way Lexa’s breath must be brushing against the hair on his head, the skin of his neck. Clarke feels a twinge of jealousy spark in her, wishing that those whisper were whispered nothings into her ears instead of whispered reports against Bellamy’s. 

He nods several times as she speaks and Clarke can’t hear a word of what she’s sharing but she knows it must be important because the smile usually present on Bellamy’s face is gone; swapped with a wrinkled brown and an uncertain frown. He hums several times in understanding, hums again in something more concerned and thoughtful, and then says “Alright, I’ll handle it,” before straightening his posture and turning to Clarke with his best, most assuring smile. 

“I have to go,” he says. 

“I understand,” Clarke tells him because Bellamy always has to go. He always has to sacrifice the time he’s set aside for her to something else. He always has to put her second. 

“You are more kind than I deserve, Lady Clarke,” he says, and Clarke forces herself to smile at his words. 

He excuses himself with a bow, turns to Lexa and says “Have someone see Lady Clarke back to her chambers and come with me,” and Clarke only catches a glimpse of Lexa’s pleading eyes in her direction before she has to turn and follow her king out of the room and leave Clarke alone again. 

One of the two guards who stood sentinel outside the room comes in shortly after Bellamy and Lexa leave, and Clarke is forced to finish her meal in awkward silence with a guard staring at her. She thinks the guards name is Tristan, at least that’s the name that comes to mind, but she doesn't ask and he doesn’t introduce himself. Instead he stands there staring at her, watching as she chews her food with a strange, wide eyed intensity that makes her uncomfortable. 

Once she finishes, she pushes away from the table, stretches her arms over her head, and allows the guard to walk her through the castle towards her chambers. “I’m perfectly capable of walking myself,” Clarke drawls as they trudge through the castle. 

“I’ve been given strict orders, my Lady,” the guard says. 

Clarke pouts and lets the soles of her shoes scrape along the stone floor as she stomps behind the guard who guides her. “From Bellamy or Lexa?” 

“From his Highness,” the guard says, starting up a spiraling staircase. 

She resists the urge to sigh, feeling trapped and childlike in Bellamy’s perception of her being unable to find her own way through the castle after nearly four months of living here. “Can you at least take me to my mother’s chambers?” she asks. 

“No,” he says. “I was instructed to take you to your own room and ensure you stay there until things are dealt with.” 

Clarke raises an eyebrow with quizzical curiosity. “Something’s happening,” she says. “Tell me what’s going on.” 

“I can’t do that, my Lady.” 

Clarke frowns. “I am the King’s Consort,” she says. “You will tell me.” 

The guard hesitates, stopping on the stairs and she sees his fingers press into the walls so hard his knuckles turn white. He turns, swallows visibly, and then he says, “All I can tell you is that the King’s guest, the Lord from the North, is not happy. King Bellamy and his shield will handle it. I can assure you that you are perfectly safe and there is nothing to worry about. Now, please, my Lady. Let us return to your chambers for the time being.” 

♕ 

Clarke and Raven are far from close, but she does swing by the forge from time to time to see the woman at work. But lately, well, since Bellamy’s ruling for how to handle the needs of the North, Raven’s been so overworked she looks on the verge of collapse and Clarke has stayed far away to keep from making matters worse. But Clarke decided after the bare bones of information she managed to gather off of Tristen and Bellamy that the best way for her to get herself more in the loop of what is going on is to ask Raven directly. So, the next day after she breaks her fast alone, she wanders down to the forges to find Raven hard at work. 

Raven Reyes, the Master Blacksmith of the royal forges, has been working nonstop to meet the demands of the king’s agreement to Lord Pike. She’s covered in sweat and soot, her dark skin almost covered entirely by black streaks and grey dust. Her hair is sweaty, stringy and despite still being pulled back into a tight ponytail, looks like a mess atop her head. She’s leaning onto an iron staff she’s made, pointing and yelling at her apprentices and subordinates and Clarke can’t stop her jaw from dropping as she takes in the scene of pure chaos in front of her. 

Raven pulls the protective goggles up over her eyes at the sight of Clarke just outside the forge and smiles brightly, her white teeth especially bright against her soot stained features. “The lady Griffin,” she says with a tone as bright as her smile. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” 

Raven wipes her face with her sleeve, streaks of sweat and soot still littering her face despite her efforts to clean herself. The sight of it brings a smile to Clarke’s features and swallows back a laugh when Raven wipes at her face again to no avail. 

“Just came to see how you’re fairing with your new order to arm the north.” 

Raven balks. “Arm the north. Right,” she says, dripping with sarcasm. “Because a few swords and helms of castle steel and iron are going to fix their problems.” 

Clarke looks into the forges, watches as the men and women inside run like beheaded chickens through the pelting heat. There’s the hammer of steel ringing in her ears and the hiss steel work screaming so loud that when Raven speaks again, she practically has to yell for Clarke to hear her. 

“Guess they could sell it for food and gold,” she says. “There's no point in giving a sword to someone who can’t fight. Hold a sword out to a raider to defend yourself and you can’t use it? Raider will kill you with your own blade and take it for themselves. Especially castle steel.” 

“You don’t sound very happy about all this,” Clarke notes loudly, feeling the heat of the forge drying her throat. 

Raven laughs with her whole body. “You said it, not me,” she says, pointing at Clarke as she laughs some more. “Come. I’ll show you what we’ve got done so far.” 

Clarke follows Raven as she waves her over, guiding her through the sweat inducing forges towards series of carts in the back of the forge where piles of armor and swords lie in wait to be shipped. Raven picks up one of the pieces of armor, a half helm of brilliant, shining steel, and hands it to Clarke. 

“What do you think?” Raven asks, her voice shouting and still hardly loud enough to make out. 

Clarke holds the half helm in her hands, thinking that she really doesn’t know very much about soldiers and war and armor. But even without her knowledge, there is an unmistakable beauty to the crafting. The metal is smooth and shining, without seams or dents of any kind. It so bright and white that it almost reflects Clarke’s image back at her and the designs etched into the steel are as intricate as embroidery on a tapestry. 

“Good enough for a soldier of Elysia?” Raven asks. 

Clarke nods. “It’s fine craftsmanship,” she says. “Puts the blacksmiths of my home to shame.” 

“It better,” Raven says. “They don’t call it castle forged steel for nothing!” 

She looks at the helm again. It's obvious that work of this quality will catch a mighty price to the right buyer; sellswords and knights and squires with high aspirations and deep pockets. Even sending the North this kind of aid, Clarke is certain that it’s costing the King a hefty sum. But she can’t help but wonder if that money could have been better spent. Raven seems convinced that no one in the north is worthy of wielding castle steel, and Clarke can’t deny that gold and grain could be seen as far more valuable to someone who does not deal with swordplay. 

She can also see how weapons and armor of such craft could become targets for raid and thievery and it begs the question; why arm people who cannot fight? The castle guard stationed across the realm already has castle forged steel. The commoners... arming them could only be putting them in danger. 

“King's Shield thinks we’re putting too much work into the project,” Raven says. “But she’s not the one with a reputation to uphold. If I send castle steel out into the world looking any less than perfect? It’ll ruin me.” 

Clarke runs her thumb over the intricate swirls in the design on the side of the helm. The design is wildly different from the simple, yet elegant black of the Kingsglaive. All that matters with their armor is the color, and the quality. Intricacies like jewels and perfect ripples of folded steel would matter not to someone like Lexa. But, at the same time, there is steel finer or more perfect than the steel of a Kingsglaive. Well, except maybe the King’s. 

“What does Lord Pike think?” Clarke asks, handing the half helm back to Raven. 

Raven shrugs. “Guy comes around at least once a day to complain that steel isn’t enough. He wants soldiers and training. Not weapons. But, if he’s going to get weapons, he’s insistent that the quality be unparalleled.” 

“And the King?” Clarke asks. “What about him?” 

“He just wants Pike gone as fast as possible. Doesn’t care how.” She throws the help back onto the pile, the ring of clashing steel adding itself to the cacophony of noise that makes up the forge. “Which means I got my work cut out for me.” 

Clarke nods, understanding what Raven is implying and looks around the forge. “Don’t work yourself too hard,” she says. “Looks like this place will fall apart without you.” 

A boom of laughter escapes Raven and she scratches the back of her neck sheepishly at the compliment. “Don’t go giving me an ego,” she says and Clarke laughs. 

“I would never." 

There’s a crashing sound behind them and Raven whirls around, scowls at something, and then turns back to Clarke. “I’m glad you stopped by, Lady Clarke, but I really need to get back to work. Got several more weeks' worth of work ahead and I can’t afford to fall behind.” 

♕ 

Clarke’s favorite time of day is the hours just before daybreak where Lexa sneaks into her chambers to kiss her awake and run her tongue against all of Clarke’s most intimate places. But, as Lexa is teaching her now, evenings in the bath might very well usurp that. 

She’s come straight from evening training, her sun-kissed skin drenched with sweat and dusted with dirt and her hair is wild and unruly and nested into a tangled mess. She’s tired and bruised from blunted swords, and it takes very little coaxing from Clarke to convince her to slip out of her tunic and into the warm bath water. 

The bath is barley large enough for them both and Clarke slides her arms around Lexa and up her muscled frame as she slides into the water, feeling the tension disperse as she settles against Clarke and closes her eyes with an audible sigh. Clarke rests her chin on Lexa’s shoulder, presses her lips softly against her exposed neck and jaw and Lexa hums something in approval and bares her neck even more for Clarke’s touch. 

“This is nice,” Clarke whispers in Lexa’s ear as her fingers come up to draw lazy circles around Lexa’s pointed, perking nipples. “We should do this more often.” 

Lexa hums again, her lips parting as she sucks in a breath. 

They’ve hardly had time for anything more than intimate kisses in the early morning light, when the sky is still purple and the castle is misty and dewy, the whole of the palace still asleep around them. This is their first time touching one another, really touching, in days. Lexa’s been so busy either with Bellamy or dealing with Pike that Clarke has almost forgot what Lexa feels like, what that look she gives from across the room her does to her. 

But this, doing things to Lexa in ways that elicit such a quiet, needy noise... it’s quickly making up for the fact that she hasn’t had time with the soldier to herself for what feels like an eternity. 

Lexa adjusts against her; her shoulder blades press against Clarke’s chest and Clarke draws her hand down into the water against her skin as she twists and finds comfort against her. She can feel raised bruises and keloidal scars, mementos of battles, training, and wars fought in the name of the King. She lets her fingers rub circles against the raised, scarred flesh, and Lexa hums again in approval as she relaxes into Clarke’s hold. 

“We should _definitely_ do this again,” Lexa finally says, relaxed and comfortable at last. 

Clarke breaths out a long sigh, finding comfort for herself in the warm water. “You’ve been really busy lately,” she says with a whisper against Lexa’s neck that makes her shiver. 

“Blame your soon to be husband and his wasteful tournament,” Lexa complains. 

“I quite liked that _wasteful_ tournament,” Clarke says playfully as her fingers find their way to Lexa’s breasts again. 

She feels Lexa suck in a sharp breath and then relax again. “Did you now?” she muses. 

“Oh, very much.” Clarke says, pressing kisses along Lexa’s neck between her words. 

“Maybe we should thank the King, then,” Lexa jokes. 

“And give him a bigger ego?” Clarke asks. “Are you trying to have me killed?” 

Lexa laughs a little at this and Clarke smiles at the melodic sounds against her ears. Lexa’s laugh is beautiful; like a symphony of strings in perfect harmony. She quite likes it when Lexa relaxes enough to laugh. 

“I would never,” Lexa says, turning in the water to look at Clarke and press her lips against her own. The kiss is warm and soft, and Clarke loses herself in the feeling of Lexa’s lips gliding against her own, only regaining a semblance of her brain back when Lexa pulls away again and resettles into the bath. 

“Really though,” Clarke begins as she pours handfuls of water down Lexa’s shoulders. “What does the tournament have to do with you disappearing on me so much? Is it the related to Bellamy’s ruling on the north?” 

“You are quite informed, Clarke,” Lexa says. “The king has asked to keep these trifles and disruptions away from your ears. He doesn’t want it spoiling your view of him or the Kingdom.” 

‘Rumors and secrets spread like wildfire in the palace,” Clarke says. “It is impossible not to know that something has caused disruption here.” 

“People do like to talk,” Lexa says. 

“Since I’m already so well informed,” Clarke says as she pours another handful of water down Lexa’s shoulders, letting her fingers trail down the watery slopes of her chest. “Why don’t you confide in me? Just a little.” 

“I can speak not for the King,” she says. “But personally, I do not agree with his decision.” 

“Arming the north?” 

“War is imminent, Clarke. There is always another battle to fight, and his Highness seems insistent on convincing the people that we are in a time of peace instead of preparing them for the realities of our future.” 

“You think Azgeda will attack Arkadia?” 

“If we seem easy enough a target to defeat,” Lexa says. “Yes.” She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Not to say I don’t see value in keeping the people happy and sedated. There is always value in maintaining peace. But ignoring the plights of people asking for aid? I think the tournament and all he’s done to impress you are a waste of time and money better spent aiding our borders.” 

“But what about the rest of the kingdom. The west, I know, can’t afford to lose any more of the castle’s presence. And Bellamy already promised us a stronger presence in the agreement to our engagement. What about them? The people in the south?” 

“I am not a politician,” Lexa says. “I am a soldier. All I see is lines that need shielding, and battles on the horizon. How his Highness allocates his people and his influence is a question best left to the small council and the King himself.” 

Clarke frowns and places her chin on Lexa’s shoulder. “You want to leave me to go fight a war that doesn’t exist?” her words are playful and light, meant to pull Lexa away from the seriousness that’s resting on her shoulders. But Lexa’s face twists with contemplation at Clarke’s words, as if she’s seriously debating the idea of marching north. 

“It doesn’t matter what I would do,” she says at last. “I have sworn my sword to the Kingsglaive. My place will always be at the King’s side, not battles fought across the kingdom.” 

Clarke wraps her arms around Lexa and pulls her closer. “Good,” she says. “I don’t know what I’d do here if you left.” 

Lexa breathes a laugh. “You’d marry a King, just as you are.” 

“Then I will use my power as Queen to bring you back,” Clarke says, and Lexa smiles and places a kiss upon her cheek at her words. 

“I would be honored to give you my sword, my Lady,” she says, twisting in the bath so that she’s face to face with Clarke for the first time, her legs straddling Clarke’s thighs as her hands glide through the water and over her hips. 

Clarke wraps her arms around Lexa’s neck and pulls her down into a kiss, their warm bodies sliding together and pressing into one another with a heat that doesn’t come from the bathwater they share. “I’m not interested in your sword, Lexa,” she says, kissing her. “But I am interested in something else.” 

♕ 

Octavia Blake is nothing like her brother. In fact, she reminds Clarke more of Lexa. 

It could be because after the burst of Lexa-centric attention she had been getting under Bellamy’s orders for her to guard Clarke, she’s now only getting a fraction of her alone time with the soldier and everything – and she means everything – reminds her of Lexa. But she’s also fairly certain that Octavia is just the type of person that doesn’t play the role of royalty well and that plays a very heavy part in what makes Octavia so unique. 

She’s different from Lexa in a lot of ways too. Where Lexa is quiet, Octavia is brash and where Lexa looms like a nightmarish shadow, Octavia makes herself known to the world. But there are also a lot of similarities that Clarke can’t overlook. Octavia’s general expression is very stern and serious, reminiscent of a soldier or a knight with a task to complete. She stands with a similar posture and carries herself with a similar gait. She’s strong and muscular like Lexa too, and she enjoys training with the Kingsglaive as much or even more than the King does. 

Clarke has never talked to the princess, but she catches glimpses of her sometimes and most of those times, she mistaking Octavia for Lexa out of the corner of her eye. It’s almost embarrassing, the way Clarke’s heart skips at beat at the sight of the wrong person. The way she desperately craves seeing Lexa to the point of losing herself over Octavia. 

Octavia looks at her sometimes too. Usually with an expression of judging and curiosity, as if she’s trying to decide what sort of person Clarke is without actually speaking to her, and the look she gives her is not entirely dissimilar to the one Lexa used to give her when they first met. 

Today in particular, Octavia keeps looking at her. She’s dressed in simple trousers and tunic, her sleeves rolled up over her arms and her skin glistening with a layer of sweat that leads Clarke to believe she had joined Lexa’s training sessions earlier in the day. Her hair is blown by the wind, wild and unkempt and very unladylike and her entire demeanor expresses something entirely different from “next in line for the Arkadian throne”. Clarke occasionally looks up from her book to find Octavia looking at her, and unlike how she used to look away and pretend to only be glancing in Clarke’s general direction, she’s continues to stare at her with a winkled brow and something akin to a scowl. 

Finally, after several awkward encounters of eye contact from across the room, Octavia has something to say. 

“So, you’re the woman my brother has to marry,” she says, looking her up and down with clear judgement. “Ser Jacob Griffin’s daughter. Right?” 

Clarke nods. “I am,” she says, wishing she didn’t have to have another conversation about her impending marriage and how it’s meant to unite the east with the west. 

“Your father was quite the knight in his time. An honorable man, too, from what I’ve heard.” 

Clarke nods again. “He was a good man and a good father,” she says. “I am lucky to be his daughter.” 

“You’re his only heir, aren’t you? Must make you quite the catch. Guess that explains why you’re here. Not many women in the west have the status you do from name alone. I bet you had tons of suitors looking to inherit your father’s land and titles.” 

She doesn’t know what to say and she looks down at the book in her hands instead of Octavia because for some reason, she can’t bring herself to talk about her position as her father’s only child. She hates talking about her father. She hates that her whole world revolves around the estate a man will inherit when she inevitably marries. 

“It must suck then to have come all this way for a guy you don’t even know,” she says to Clarke’s immense surprise. She rolls her eyes and clicks her tongue against her teeth. “If my brother ever tried to marry me off for some political crap, I'd kick his teeth in.” 

Clarke laughs at this and sets her book down. “It’s not terrible,” she says, mostly because she’s prepared her entire life for the reality that she’ll be sent off to marry a man for political gain and not for love. 

“It’s not ideal either,” Octavia says. “Ravua is the goddess of love and marriage and we’re out here saying “Fuck love, let’s just marry women off to men they’ve never met so that we can force other people to be nicer to us.” 

Clarke purses her lips. Octavia isn’t wrong, but no one ever speaks on this the way she just has. It’s an unwritten rule to accept the fate you’ve been given, not question it or outright defy it the way Octavia is saying she has. Must be nice to be able to choose your own fate. A privilege, Clarke thinks, available to the princess of the Kingdom and no one else. 

“Apologies,” Octavia says. “I’m not trying to speak ill of you or your marriage to my brother.” 

“You don’t speak ill of anything,” Clarke says quickly. “In fact, I find your perspective refreshing. Not many women of status have the courage or the power to choose who they will love.” 

“No one chooses who they love,” Octavia says. “People _choose_ to accept what they think is love for the sake of others. If you were raised as common folk like my brother and I, you’d understand that.” 

It is true that the commoners often do not worry about things such as political marriages, power plays and alliances. But Clarke has never in her life considered that there were benefits to being a lesser family such as falling in love of your own accord. And she had never thought that Bellamy’s childhood as a commoner might have affected the way he viewed his political arrangement to Clarke. She knew it was because he was common that he became King. That his experience as a nobody was to guide them all to a better, more balanced future. But to think that he had never prepared himself to wed a woman for reasons other than love the way she had... 

“Before he was crowned King,” Octavia says, “There was another woman. Her name was Gina.” 

Clarke doesn’t know what to say or what to do, so she bites down on her cheeks and bobs her chin. “I take it you like Gina more than me?” she assumes. What else is she supposed to think? She is this woman’s replacement, after all. 

“Gina’s dead,” Octavia says. “I just think you deserve to know what you’re getting yourself into with my brother.” 

“I already know what I’m getting myself into,” Clarke says. “You may be lucky enough to choose your path, but I've known my entire life what my duty to my house is.” 

“Never thought that duty would be to Bellamy though,” Octavia points out, and she isn’t wrong. Clarke spent most of her childhood getting to know Wells and preparing for a life as his wife, not Bellamy’s. Not some strange man with commoner roots and more power than anyone else in the realm. She never prepared for queendom and the responsibilities that come with it. 

“My brother loved Gina,” Octavia says. “He still does. And you deserve to know that because if you think, even for a moment, that he will love you the way he loved her, you’re dead wrong. You may be pretty, Clarke Griffin, but you’re just politics. And no woman ever deserves to be looked at as an obligation.” 

♕ 

Octavia’s words stuck with her after that. 

She stands on a stool as her mother slides pins into her wedding gown and frowns into the mirror at the sight of herself. It isn’t the dress itself. Her mother has poured her heart into the thing and it fits her beautifully and she knows that her mother and – her father too – have wanted nothing more than to see her like this; perfect for her groom. But she can’t help but think back to what Octavia said about being an obligation. 

In her years she had always thought that she could learn to love her husband the way her mother learned to love her father, the way she had learned to love Wells. She thought a learned love was enough. That with honor, duty, and a bit of learned respect and love could be all she needed to live a prosperous, happy life. That she could raise a family with a good man, that she could be proud of the banner of their house, that they could look at her and their father and see that same learned love that she sees in her mother’s eyes and know that even though their fate is written, that it doesn’t have to be a bad one. 

But she had always operated under the assumption that her husband would be the son of a high lord, who was raised with a similar mindset as herself. Where the notions of falling in love were foolish and stupid because in the end, they had no say in who it was they were to love. Marrying a King was never a part of her plan. Marrying the son of a commoner was never a part of her plan. Marrying a man who had already loved before her was never a part of her plan. 

But then again, her falling for a knight in black armor was never a part of her plan either. 

Because of Lexa, she can’t say she was going into her marriage with trust and honor. But in the end, Bellamy couldn’t say he was going into their marriage with an open heart so, maybe it’s only fair that way. Maybe Lexa would be her Gina, and her marriage to Bellamy would never be half as good as her mother’s marriage to her father. Maybe this was to be her loveless torture. The life of an obligation, not a person. A life where her only duty is to bear children and raise the heir to the throne. 

The thought of being nothing more than an unloved, spiteful mother makes her sick to her stomach and she hates the way the dress feels like chains on her body. She hates that her mother sent her here, signed her away to a man she’s never met and never planned for. She hates that her father isn’t here to stop it. 

She fights the burn in her eyes and looks away from her reflection. She can’t stand the sight of herself like this. It’s too much to bear alone and she’s been alone ever since she got here. All she has is Lexa and Lexa, much like Clarke, is bound to the King. She knows she shouldn’t wish it, and she knows that it’s a fruitless desire, but she wishes Lexa were at least here. That she could look into her eyes and get lost in the forests there. She knows that Lexa couldn’t hold her, that there is nothing she could say to make things better. But that doesn’t matter. She wants Lexa here with her now, telling her she’s beautiful and that everything will be okay. That she’s not just an obligation. 

She wants to feel wanted, needed. She wants to feel loved. 

She shakes her head at the thought of love. How foolish she is. She doesn’t love Lexa. She can’t. Her life doesn’t work that way. Her love is signed and sealed, given to the man who promises an alliance and protection to the west. Her love was given to Bellamy by her mother. Her love can never be given to Lexa, and Lexa can never love her. She’s sworn to the sword, to the King, a sacrifice she made years ago. 

“There,” her mother says, stepping away from Clarke. She has pins between her lips and her hair is pulled into the messiest braid she’s ever seen her wear, but she’s smiling at her work and Clarke knows that she should be smiling too. She just has to find the strength to do it. 

She turns and looks at herself in the mirror, runs her fingers down the sapphire fabric that’s hugging her curves just a little bit tighter than before, that runs like water down her skin. She imagines herself done up; flowers in her braided hair and blush on her cheeks and she knows she will be beautiful. “It looks amazing, mother,” she says with the steadiest voice she can muster. 

“The King will love you,” Abby says kissing her forehead. 

Clarke tangles her bottom lip between her teeth and looks away from her reflection again. “I hope so mother,” she says. She really, really does. She has to. If she doesn’t believe that Bellamy can love her then what’s the point in any of this? And if she doesn’t believe that she can love him too... if she doesn’t believe... 

“Clarke, honey,” her mother wipes the tears from her eyes. 

“What if he doesn’t?” she asks. 

“He will,” she says. 

“What if...” she licks her lips and swallows the worry that dams her throat. “What if I don’t?” 

Her mother frowns as she wipes more tears from her eyes. “Just like Wells,” she says. “You were so terrified you’d hate him as a kid. Do you remember?” 

Clarke shakes her head, sniffling. 

“But you learned to love him. Didn’t you?” 

Clarke nods. As far as her memories would tell her, she has always loved Wells. She was always content and proud to unite her house with his. 

Abby squeezes her arms and then pulls her into a hug, her fingers stroking Clarke’s hair. “You’re just nervous. Bellamy is a good man, Clarke. I would never send you away if I didn’t think you could find love here.” 

Clarke forces herself to nod against her mother's hold and Abby pulls away when she does. “Pre-marriage jitters,” she tells Clarke. “That’s all.” Abby then places her hands on her hips and looks her up and down again. “Once he sees you on you in this dress everything will change for the better. I promise.” 

♕ 

Bellamy finally reassigns Lexa to Clarke’s side when she tells him she wants to go into the city to shop for flowers for their wedding. 

“We have florists here, Clarke,” he tells her. “You shouldn’t worry yourself over little details of our wedding. All you need to do is show up.” 

Clarke says to him, “The florists aren’t coordinating with my mother on my dress. I thought maybe I could find someone better suited for the task in the city.” 

Bellamy chews on this for a moment, but gives in when she gives him a pleading look that practically begs for his approval. “Very well," he says with a wave of his hand that summons Lexa to his side. “Just don’t go alone. I don’t want you wandering those streets without proper guard. Alright?” 

Lexa bows, tells the King. “I am happy to serve the Lady of your house, your Highness,” and just like that, they’re sent off into the city, alone. 

She hadn’t spent time with Lexa since their bath; Lexa having been pulled away by the King to deal with matters regarding Lord Pike almost exclusively since they encountered some sort of problem that Bellamy refused to clue Clarke in on, and she has missed her Knight terribly ever since. She’s needed Lexa’s steadying presence in her life these past few days more than ever before, and the mere action of sitting next to her in carriage that takes them down to the city has Clarke awash with the waves of calm and comfort she’s needed so badly since Lexa’s been gone. 

The carriage ride is private and wonderful, and the entire trip to the city is filled with Lexa’s touch and gentle kisses on her fingers, knuckles, cheeks and lips. It’s as if Lexa too has been desperate to reunite with Clarke, and these few moments of privacy are gushing with weeks of pent of need between them. She was happy just being by her side on the castle grounds, but space between the castle and the city is where Lexa’s touch swells to life, and it takes everything Clarke has in her not to whine with need in ways that their carriage driver might overhear. 

Lexa doesn’t even need to do much. All it takes is a kiss on her knuckles and squeeze of Clarke’s hand in Lexa’s own to do Clarke in. By the time they’re halfway to the city Lexa is reminding her through gentle whispers and fingers over her mouth to keep herself quiet. 

“A distraction, then,” Lexa says when Clarke fails to swallow her needy moans and breathless gasps for what might be the fifth time. 

“You _are_ the distraction,” Clarke tells her. 

“A _different_ distraction, then,” she corrects, shifting away from Clarke so that the only part of them touching is Lexa’s fingers atop her hand. 

“You could tell me what it is you’ve been doing all this time,” Clarke says. 

“I could,” Lexa agrees. “But I'm sure you will agree that politics are quite boring.” 

“Bellamy can’t shield me from the truth forever. If I’m going to be Queen, I will find out eventually.” 

Lexa sighs with defeat and rubs circles into Clarke’s hand with her thumb. “There is little more for you to find out. Pike returned to the north yesterday. However, it was with only half the gear he was promised.” 

“What happened?” 

“He got angry one too many times. Says that Bellamy is ignoring the needs of his own people in favor of pretending that everything is fine and well, so the King sent him home with what was forged and nothing more. The King says he has no reason to help a man who is not grateful for the Crown’s assistance.” Lexa looks out the window and then turns back to Clarke. “I spent most of my time attempting to keep Pike at peace while he was here. Make him feel heard and respected. With him gone, I can return to my usual duties.” 

“Do you think he’s right?” Clarke asks. “About Bellamy ignoring his people?” 

“It is not my place to question, my Lady,” she says. The carriage comes to a stop then and Lexa kisses her hand and says, “Now, let’s get you flowers.” 

Clarke blinks a few times, and then realizes at once what it is Lexa is talking about. “Oh,” she says. “Right. For the wedding.” 

Lexa tilts her head to one side but doesn’t say anything. Instead she leans across the carriage and brings a hand up to Clarke’s cheek, pulling her in to full, overwhelmingly impassioned kiss that lasts not nearly long enough for Clarke’s liking. She pulls away, runs her calloused thumb down Clarke’s cheek, and says to her. “You will make the most beautiful bride in all of Arkadia.” 

Her words feel genuine, and Clarke is grateful for them, but she still feels uncomfortable and filthy whenever someone reminds her of her impending wedding to King Bellamy Blake. Especially Lexa. But Lexa, being the wonderful person she is, notices Clarke’s awkward shift and she reaches out to take her hand and kiss her knuckles the way she often does. Clarke smiles at the touch, the feeling of filth and sin lifting from her skin. “Now, my queen,” she says. “Allow me to show you around Elysia.” 

♕ 

The one thing Clarke needs to do more of is spend alone time with Bellamy. But between his gargantuan schedule and her general lack of interest in pursuing making herself a part of that schedule, all of Clarke’s free time goes either to modeling her still in progress dress for her mother or to Lexa. And since the dress is nearing completion now, the vast majority of the time once spent with her mother now also goes to Lexa. At least, it does when Lexa has the time to spend with Clarke. Which – while not much – is exponentially more than the time given to her by Bellamy. 

Clarke even sees Octavia more than Bellamy these days, which is wild to her considering that it took months for Clarke to ever even find herself in the same room as Octavia until a few weeks ago. Now she sees the younger woman almost everywhere she goes. 

And it isn’t that Clarke is ignoring or avoiding her King. If an opportunity arose in which Clarke could actually get some time alone with Bellamy, she would take it – she really needed to. The problem is that neither Bellamy nor Clarke see the other person as inaugural to their day. Bellamy does whatever it is royalty does and Clarke does whatever the hell she wants and both of them care more about that than they do each other. It’s what happens when two people are pushed together into a political union that neither party really cares about. 

When she does see Bellamy, the interactions are brief, overly formal and still decorated with unnecessary flattery and compliments. Bellamy tells her how beautiful she is, Clarke tells him how thoughtful and brave he is. It’s an awkward cycle of compliments that Octavia has started snickering at and Raven has started raising a curious brow over because most of the time, when Clarke does see Bellamy, it’s during some sort of interaction that involves either Octavia, Raven, or Lexa too. 

Recognizing that Bellamy is her soon to be husband, Clarke knows she should really be putting more effort into getting comfortable and accustomed to privacy with the King, but instead of addressing the problem Clarke finds herself ecstatic with the fact that every moment of their alone time has been interrupted by someone or something proclaiming to be more important. She should be giddy with excitement over Bellamy being with her, not leaving her for something else. But here she is, able to count the number of times he’s kissed her on one hand and absolutely content with that number staying exactly the same for the foreseeable future. 

Their first kiss was delicate and awkward. He had asked her for permission and Clarke, wanting to do right by her people and being fully aware of her position, said yes. It lacked the passion and the heat she had come to find herself accustomed to when Lexa was on the other side of her lips and Clarke found herself immediately awash with disappointment and boredom. It felt formal and forced and his lips were like dried up worms against hers and everything about it felt wrong. In the end, the whole of the kiss itself fizzled out the moment it began; the only feeling even close to resembling excited nervousness, butterflies, or sparks was the heartbeat between his asking for and actually acting upon the quest to kiss her at all. 

It was nothing like her first kiss with Lexa, and maybe it’s wrong of her to compare the heated passions of forbidden romance to that of an expected and required courtship, but she can’t help it. Every time she has to look at Bellamy, she finds herself comparing the empty feeling in her chest to the squeezing flutter of need she feels when she looks at Lexa or the heat that swells from within her at the very mention of Lexa’s name. She feels guilty for it, of course, and it’s that guilt she feels that fueled their second kiss. 

Clarke initiated their second kiss, hoping that spontaneity and control would spark something inside her. It didn’t, and Clarke found herself straddling Bellamy on his throne being more worried about getting caught in a precarious position and what those people would think of her (most of ‘those people’ being Lexa), than she was allowing herself to be in the moment. She remembers that she found in this instance that Bellamy has large hands that he doesn’t know how to use or what to do with and also that his worm lips were no less disgusting against her than they were during their last kiss. 

This kiss, of course, became the fuel to their third and final kiss just last week where Bellamy tried to be spontaneous and passionate like Clarke had been, but that ended up in their teeth hitting each other and more of Bellamy not knowing what to do with his hands. To add to that, Clarke was in such shock over the whole thing that she didn’t even kiss him back for several seconds and, by the time it clicked in her mind that she’s supposed to be _into_ this guy, he had already pulled away and started coming up with excuses to get away from her. 

There are also weird almost instances in their collection; like when Lexa walked in on them during the tourney or when she walked in on them during supper or when she walked in on them during one of their rare strolls through the garden... somehow Lexa is always the one putting an end to everything between Clarke and Bellamy, be it intentional or not. 

_And thank the gods for Lexa_ , Clarke thinks, as she often does. Arguably, she shouldn’t be thanking anyone for the situations she finds herself in when it comes to Lexa. Especially the gods. But she finds its very difficult to do anything but cry out to them when Lexa’s fingers are corkscrewing into her for the second time this week and _fuck,_ Lexa really does know what the hell she’s doing. 

Clarke gasps; nails digging into the skin on Lexa’s back, her shoulder blades pressing like hot iron against Clarke’s fingers. Lexa’s got her pinned to the bed, her muscled frame wrapped around Clarke and trapping her between her glorious abs and the featherbed of her chambers. Her lips are imprinting sloppy, wet kisses into Clarke’s breast, her nipple caught between Lexa’s teeth and attentive to her every touch. It’s like magic, tingling and warm, flowing through her veins. A feeling unlike anything she could ever even imagine to be possible. 

Her back arches with the curl of Lexa’s fingers, a sharp cry slipping past her lips as her arms vice around Lexa’s shoulders. It takes everything she has in her not to scream to the gods, but she pants Lexa’s name like it’s spell, chanting it over and over with gasped ‘oh’s and breathy ‘fuck’s. 

Lexa’s tongue glides up her sternum, peppers sloppy kisses onto her collarbone and then captures her lips in her own. Lexa’s got her so close, so fucking close, that everything she does to her (from her kiss, to the tickle of her hair against Clarke’s skin, to the way her fingers twist within her) threatens to send her over the edge. It almost torturous, to be brought so close to the edge and not an inch more, and Clarke is getting desperate and needy in Lexa’s arms. If her mind was working properly – if Lexa wasn’t capable of casting such magics on her – she might even wonder if teasing her like this was something that Lexa does on purpose. Almost like she enjoys making Clarke squirm and beg and shudder for the slightest hint of her touch. 

She comes with a shuddering orgasm, pleasure overwhelming her as she cries out and convulses beneath Lexa’s sweaty form. Exhausted and breathless, Clarke’s back falls back onto the feather mattress and she pushes the tangled mess of her hair out of hers so she can see Lexa atop her. 

She’s sweaty and puffing, her face slightly pinkened and her green eyes almost glowing in the firelight from the hearth. “You’re beautiful when you come,” she says as she rolls onto the bed beside her and kisses the underside of her jaw, her neck, and up to the base of her ear. 

Clarke thinks that’s absurd. How could she possibly be the beautiful one when Lexa is the work of the gods themselves? Clarke rolls onto her shoulder, cups Lexa’s cheek in her hands, and kisses the woman with passion and fire. “You’re the beautiful one,” she says when they separate. “But thank you.” 

Lexa’s smile lights up the room. She loves Lexa’s smile. It's rare and small, hardly there but full of emotion. The small, tiny act of her lips curling in the corners, that little twitch of emotion, it’s Clarke’ most favorite thing in the whole of the realm and it’s a smile she knows now, after months of her self-indulgent bliss with Lexa, is reserved just for her. 

Clarke reaches across them, lets her fingers brush aside the twisting, unruly tangles of her hair from her face and Lexa closes her eyes at the touch, smiling even more when Clarke’s fingers trailed down her temples, across her cheek, and lingered over her jaw. Lexa isn’t used to being called beautiful. Softness, intimacy, they’re things Lexa is surprisingly good at while simultaneously finding a way to be slightly awkward and uncomfortable. It's like a part of herself that so deeply embedded into the foundation of who she is, that was then buried and forgotten by the way of the shield. 

But Clarke knows the person before her now is not the person who stands sentinel at Bellamy’s side. Just as the woman she is in the privacy of her chambers with her armored knight is not the woman who will stand at the alter before the entirety of the realm and profess her unyielding loyalty and love to King Bellamy. She knows that they are different people together than they are apart, like a wall goes up and separates their little world from the rest of reality. And she knows that in the end, this little world is the one that will have to end. But the problem is, she doesn’t want it to. 

She smiles at Lexa, watches as the worn-down soldier sinks deeper into her bed with her eyes closed, letting herself enjoy the small pleasures of a plush bed beneath her. Letting her walls come down in the presence of Clarke and Clarke alone. Seeing this, this small sigh of relief as she adjusts in the bed and lets the weight of the world evaporate from her shoulders – it makes Clarke’s heart swell in her chest and press into her ribs. 

A pang in her chest stabs at her conscience. The reality is, her wedding day grows ever closer, and before long, the safety of Clarke’s private chambers will be no more. Moments like this will be gone, replacing Lexa with the King. She chews on her lip at the thought, her eyes falling from Lexa’s content smile to the silken silvery sheets of her bed. She bunches the fabric between her fingers, trying to squeeze the thoughts away through sheer force of will. Thinking about Bellamy tonight the way she has... it ruins everything she’s supposed to have here and now with Lexa. It destroys the moment – this rare and wonderous gift she’s been given and forced to hide. And yet, his presence – her future – looms over her like a shadow cast by the gods. 

“Something’s wrong,” Lexa observes, her eyes open again. She’s propped her head up on her fist, her elbow digging into the feather bed below them, her eyes heavy and lidded and sleepy. 

Clarke shakes her head. “I’m just thinking,” she admits vaguely. 

“About what?” Lexa asks, her fingers drawing delicate patterns on Clarke’s skins. 

Clarke bites down on her cheeks, suddenly embarrassed. “About us,” she says, swallowing. “This.” 

Lexa rubs her eyes with her forearm and then slides up in the bed. Her eyes glow with life and as she sits up, her hand find Clarke’s gives it a gentle squeeze. She doesn’t have anything to say, but Clarke can see in her eyes that she thinks the same things that Clarke does. That Lexa knows, without the use of words, exactly what it is that plagues her mind and fills her with dread. Her thumb rubs small circles into the back of Clarke’s hand, the gentle squeeze of Lexa’s fingers around her combatting the anxiety that rages within her. 

She looks at Lexa’s thumb as it traces over her veins and smiles at the touch. This wasn’t supposed to happen... this thing she has with Lexa. Whatever it is. She wasn’t supposed to be here, doing this, feeling these feelings. Not with her, with Lexa, at least. But here she is, naked and touched by a woman, a soldier of the king. Here she is, straying from her path, her purpose. Here she is, running to Lexa. 

Always to Lexa. 

It doesn’t make sense, and maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe whatever this is is better because it doesn’t make sense. Maybe the last thing she should be doing is trying to find reason in this madness. Maybe she should accept this feeling, these touches, this affection for what is at the surface. The less involved she gets, the easier it will be to tear herself away when the time comes for her to commit to her soon to be husband. 

The only problem is, she doesn’t ever want that time to come. 

♕ 

“I see you’ve grown close with my shield.” 

Clarke purses her lips and looks up from her meal. Bellamy sits across from her, smiling the way he does. She can’t tell if its hostile or not, but she doesn’t want to find out either. “I have,” she admits carefully. “Lexa is... quite wonderful.” 

“She is a fine soldier and a trustworthy ally,” he says. “I’m glad you feel comfortable in her presence but...” his voice trails off and he stabs a vegetable with his fork. “I worry that you’re not making friends here. Lexa is a soldier, my soldier, not a friend.” 

Clarke frowns. Making friends hadn’t exactly been at the forefront of her mind since arriving at the palace, but she didn’t spend _all_ her time either alone or with Lexa. She had, sort of, something resembling the beginnings of friendship with Raven Rayes. And if she were going down that path, she also had a sort of budding relationship with Octavia – whatever that was between them. 

The point being, she’s spent time with people other than her mother, herself, or Lexa. 

She opens her mouth to protest this, but the words don’t come. What sort of relationship did she even have with Raven? With Octavia? They weren’t friends, at least not in the definition she knows Bellamy to be referring to. But they were something! “I’ve been taking with your sister, lately,” she says, trying to find something to defend herself with. “Raven Rayes, too.” 

Bellamy dips his chin in a single, knowing nod. “I suppose I should be grateful that you’re finding companionship in Octavia. She needs friends beyond the scope of my soldiers more than you do.” 

“My King?” She asks, unsure of what he means by this. 

“Surely, you’ve seen Octavia in the training yard. She spends more time there than most my soldiers do.” Bellamy laughs and stabs at a vegetable with his fork, chews, and then swallows. He pats the corner of his lips with a cloth napkin and then smiles at Clarke again. “I love my sister, truly, but she seems to forget that she is nobility. More than that, really. She’s a princess. She cannot simply throw her life away to the sword and shield.” 

“And why not? Plenty of nobility have abandoned their titles in favor of servitude before her.” Clarke doesn’t really know why she’s asking. It isn’t like she particularly close to Octavia. It isn’t like she cares one way or another what her future holds. But something tells her that it’s a question she needs to ask. As if there are answers to questions far greater in Bellamy’s words than the question she’s asking. 

Bellamy sets down his napkin and reaches for his goblet of wine. “Because,” he says, matter of fact, “Octavia is my sister, her safety is my responsibility, and I will not have her put in harm's way. She is skilled with a sword, yes. But unlike Lexa, she has no experience with war and conflict. Swordplay is nothing but fun and games for her, and so long as I breathe, I will ensure that it stays that way.” 

These words hit her with a strangeness she cannot speak upon. Memories of Lexa confiding in her over the state of the realm dappling her mind and reminding her of the duality of her life here in the castle. She wants to point that if war returns to Arkadia, they will need every sword they can get, especially from leaders like their King and the Princess. She wants to say that if Azgeda invades them, won’t it not matter if Octavia has seen battle before or not? Won’t she see it regardless? 

Instead, Clarke bites her cheeks and looks down at her plate. It is not her place to question her King, and it is not yet her place to express her worry for the state of the realm. These are concerns of a Queen, not a King’s consort – an adulterous one at that. 

“Perhaps I'm being too rigid,” Bellamy says at last and Clarke looks up from her plate with a smile. “But I don’t care if I'm see that way. Not when it comes to my sister. Not when it comes to keeping her safe. If I can’t protect my own sister, then what right do I have to be King?” 

“Your sister is a grown woman capable of making her own decisions,” Clarke says. “Maybe you should trust her to decide what is best for her own life.” 

“You sound like Lexa,” Bellamy observes, frowning. 

Clarke feels a smug grin pulling at her lips. 

“So, I will tell you what I told her: If I wanted to debate my sister’s future I'd do so with the small council. Not with you." 

The hints of smugness that tug at Clarke’s features vanish, a sad pout replacing them as she chews on Bellamy’s words. 

“Perhaps it’s time I find you a new guard.” 

Clarke’s mouth opens to protest, but she can’t find any words. What say did she have in the matter? What argument did she hold that could placate Bellamy’s disappointment in her? Nothing. She has nothing. She had Lexa. But now... she was losing her. All because she tried to stand up for a woman she hardly knows. 

She remembers what Octavia told her about Gina. About how he would never love her the way he had loved another and she wonders if that love is similar to the love he has expressed towards his sister. She wonders if it’s a love she even wants at all? She wonders if she’ll even have a choice in the matter. If being his obligation, being his wife, meant anything to him at all? 

Probably not. 

And this... taking Lexa away from her. It’s the beginning of her life with a man in charge of the entire world. It’s the beginning of her life as dictated and decided by the King. Every choice she makes will be to please him and every action he takes will be to control her, to keep her exactly as he wants her to be. Nothing more, nothing less. And the entire idea of it all – the realization of what Bellamy’s love really means – it strikes her like a club. And all at once, she finally realizes what it is she’s giving her life to. 

A man who has the world, who controls it, who will do whatever it takes to keep it that way. 

♕ 

Bellamy hasn’t allowed Lexa to escort Clarke for over a week and Clarke is beginning to lose all semblance of grace in her wanting. 

She sees Lexa sometimes in passing, but Lexa doesn’t so much as give her the grace of her green eyes looking back at her. Instead, she looks right through her, as if she were nobody. As if she didn’t exist at all. And Clarke knows it’s not Lexa’s fault, not her doing or her choice, but she feels the hurt all the same. Her needs unmet and unreturned by the only person who matters to her. But Lexa is a soldier first, and a lover second, and Clarke has known this from the beginning. Just as Clarke is first and foremost the King’s consort; passion and heat shared between her and Lexa be dammed. 

Still, it's difficult to deal with. The closer her wedding grows, the more time she finds herself spending with Bellamy. And the more time she spends with Bellamy, the more she finds herself hot with desire for the soldier that stands behind him. She’s stern and strong, her posture straight and rigid as folded steel and her eyes cold as iron. Her jaw is tense, teeth clenched and warpaint smudged in creases and cracks where her expression ripples across her features. Always looking forward, always stoic and disciplined. 

It isn't the Lexa she knows, but it’s the Lexa she’s being given. The Lexa she’s supposed to know. 

Clarke hates it. She sits in the foyer of the Palace, book in hand, eyes skimming over the top of the pages and beyond Bellamy’s shoulder, staring at Lexa as Lexa stares past her. She wants to communicate with her somehow. Tell her, show her, just how desperate she’s become since their last encounter. But with Bellamy smiling at her from his place across from her, there’s nothing she can do. 

She smiles back at him and looks back down at the pages of her book. In truth, she’s had trouble holding Bellamy’s gaze lately, his springtime smile and gentle eyes assaulting her with a flurry of feelings that she isn’t comfortable with or ready to address. At first, she feels like she isn't deserving of such kindness, but that now passes faster than she can process it. Replacing it, a wave of Octavia’s warnings and a reminder of Bellamy’s underlying need for control. And Clarke hasn’t even begun to dissect how that makes her feel. She just looks away and swallows thickly over the welling emotions, hoping that ignoring it is enough. 

Bellamy is dressed in a lovely, velvet doublet with golden embroidery on the chest and black pants. His hair is curling and unruly, framing his face like a black crown that makes his eyes shine and his smile sparkle. By all rights and reason, any woman would be beside themselves over his beauty and style, but Clarke can hardly pay any attention to her soon to be husband, and every time the blue of his doublet catches her eyes, they look right past him to the black armor Lexa dons behind him. 

As per usual, Lexa is dressed in all black, partially armored in greaves and vambraces with a pauldren on her left shoulder and her silvery-white paludamentum draping behind her. She’s painted of face, black claws trailing down the apple of her cheeks and across her temples to her hairline. She’s black as night and fierce as a dragon and her eyes are alight with cold fire even in her motionless, disciplined state. 

Not once does her gaze falter, her glowing green eyes refusing to fall to Clarke no matter how many times Clarke steals a glance at her armored lover behind her soon to be husband. And each time Clarke’s eyes meet the hardened wall that is Lexa, her heart drops into the pit of her stomach, churning with need and anxiety and loss. 

Bellamy hasn’t noticed her sourness. After the first few weeks of playing the role of charming and delightful, his attentiveness towards Clarke began to waiver. She assumes he doesn't care to concern himself with her feelings if he doesn’t have to, and she should be upset about that, but she’s actually quite pleased with it. It's easier for her to not have to explain herself, especially in front of Lexa. 

But Clarke can’t bear being before her lover for another moment without so much as a glance of acknowledgement. She’s desperate for Lexa’s touch, starved for orgasms, but none of that compares to the need she feels for Lexa’s eyes upon her. Just a nod, the press of her lips into a hard line, something to show her that Lexa thinks about her the way she thinks about Lexa. Something that tells her that Lexa needs her too. 

She closes the book and sets it onto the table beside her chair, provoking the King into raising a curious eyebrow as she stands from her seat and stretches her arms over her head. 

“Going somewhere?” 

Clarke’s arms fall to her sides and she quickly wraps them around herself and forces her eyes to stay trained on the King. Their wedding is only six days away. She needs to get used to realities of her future, no matter how uncomfortable they may make her now. 

“Nowhere,” she says, not sure of what else to say. “Just stretching.” 

The king hums and his eyes fall from her presence and back to the book he was enjoying. 

Feeling the eyes on her, Clarke sits back down and pushes away the wrinkles of her dress. Her fingers run over the smooth fabric, feel the almost water like silk against her palms. Since her arrival, almost all of her dresses had been replaced by newly sewn garments made by royal tailors using the finest textiles in the realm. The stitch work is exquisite, the fit perfection. But she feels less like herself, and that knowledge sits uncomfortable between her skin and the dress itself. Gods, she wishes Lexa would just take the damn thing off her. Throw it on the floor and replace the touch of smooth silks with the calloused and scarred skin of Lexa’s hands against her. 

She presses her lips together, and twists one leg over the other, her thighs squeezing. She grabs the book off the table and flips the pages open, chancing a glance at Lexa as she does and finds that this time, Lexa is look back at her. 

It isn’t much, but the sear of her green eyes ignites something within Clarke and she’s squeezing her thighs so tightly as something coils in the pit of her stomach and rages through the blood in her veins. She’s hot suddenly, flustered with pinkened cheeks that she quickly ducks behind the pages of the book. 

Bellamy, thankfully, doesn’t notice Clarke’s uncomfortable, needy squirm. But Lexa does. Clarke knows it. She can see now that Lexa is watching her from the corners of her eyes. That even though those green flames stare hard into the wall behind Clarke, the edges of her vision are encapsulating everything Clarke does. She sees her and Clarke knows that she wants her and Clarke’s own desires are flooding out of her pores now like a broken dam, filling the room with her need. 

Lexa swallows thickly, her eyes closing for a blink that lasts just a moment too long. 

Clarke licks her lips, lets her eyes trail down Lexa’s lean figure, down the spiked armored and the black fabrics that hide her muscled, calloused, and scarred frame. She thinks about Lexa’s skin on her own, the fire that burns wild and impassioned when Clarke’s body presses against Lexa’s. She thinks about the chapped, full lips that press hot and wet against her neck, her breasts, her jaw, and between her thighs. She closes her eyes, her lips parting just enough for a shaking breath to pass between them. 

She opens her eyes again, heavy lidded and blown pupils, her thighs squeezing. Lexa’s jaw flexes, her knuckles pop under the tension of her fists. 

Bellamy smiles at her again, his brown eyes looking wanting and excited and she realizes then that in her weakness for Lexa, she’s let Bellamy see her in her wanting state. 

He sets the book in his hands down on the cushion beside him and pushes to his feet, crossing the small distance between them and offering her his hand. “Should we find a place more private,” he asks. 

Clarke bites her cheeks and forces herself not to plead to Lexa with her eyes. She looks at Bellamy’s hand. It's rough and calloused like Lexa’s, but large and meaty and his fingers are stubby and short compared to Lexa’s which are gloriously long and nimble. “Shouldn’t we wait until the wedding?” she asks, desperately looking for an excuse to say no to the man you never say no to. 

“It’s less than a week away,” he says. “There’s plenty of other things we can explore.” 

She takes Bellamy’s hand, her eyes flying to Lexa behind them. She knows that Lexa can’t do anything to save her. She knows her soldier, her knight, is bound by the king and his rule. But still, she pleads with Lexa’s eyes, her ocean blues locking desperately with the woman behind her King’s shoulder. 

Lexa’s turned her gaze toward them now, no one in the room to see her falter but Clarke with Bellamy’s back turned and his focus so plainly on Clarke. It’s the slightest shift of her chin. Just a little twist of her neck that allows her to make direct eye contact with Clarke. Just enough for Lexa’s eyes to scream with apology. To wish she could intervene, to showcase the immense force she’s putting upon herself to stay still. 

But there’s nothing she can do. There’s nothing Clarke can do. 

Bellamy rubs his thumb along the backside of Clarke’s hand and pulls her gracefully to her feet, his free hand capturing her chin between his fingers. “What do you say, Clarke? Should we find a place more private?” 

She feels the tremble in her lips as she sucks in a breath between her teeth. “I,” she says, her ocean blue eyes peering into Bellamy’s dark ones. “Perhaps we should wait. Else the gods would not look favorably upon our union.” 

Bellamy releases her and steps back. “I did not expect you to be a woman so faithful to tradition.” 

“I am faithful to my people,” she says. 

His hands tangle behind his back and he rocks on his heels. “Of course,” he agrees with a frown. “We’ve waited this long. What’s a few more days?” 

“Exactly,” Clarke says, forcing a smile and grabbing Bellamy’s arm. She lets her fingers stroke his bicep and chances a glance at Lexa again when she says. “Just a few more days. Then I’m yours for the taking.” 

Bellamy smiles, and Lexa behind them, frowns. 

♕ 

Days later, when the sun has yet to breach the horizon with its morning light, Lexa finally returns to her for Clarke feels might be the last time. 

It starts with a soft, almost impossible to hear knock; gentle knuckles rapping on the oaken door that sift Clarke into a lazy wake. She’s barely got one eye open, the other being rubbed by tired fingers when the door opens with a wailing creak and Lexa pokes her gorgeous green eyes into the room. She’s used Lexa sneaking in during the late hours of the night, the early hours of morning, but it’s been so long that she’s groggy and confused and rolling onto her side to rub her eyes in confusion instead of smile and reach for her lover as she slides inside the safety of Clarke’s chambers. Chambers of which, as of tomorrow, she will no longer have. Still, as Lexa’s smile reaches her through the soft firelight of the dying fire in hearth, Clarke feels the beam of happiness split across her face and etch into her features. 

She had almost given in to the idea that she would never again see Lexa in this intimate space. She had nearly convinced herself that Lexa would never again find her way to Clarke’s chambers. Her wedding, so painfully close now, dominating the reality that Lexa is not hers. Not truly. Not in the way that she is Bellamy’s. Not the way Bellamy is hers. But here she is, sliding into the room with that familiar grace and quiet longing. Here she is, bringing herself to Clarke on the eve of it all to give them one last chance to pretend the world is different. To pretend that Clarke is Lexa’s and Lexa is Clarke’s. 

Lexa shuts the door, not letting her eyes leave Clarke and toe walks across the room. Clarke slides up one arm and into a lazy half sitting position on the bed, her free hand reaching out to meet Lexa’s hand that reaches across the room to greet her. Rough fingers glide between Clarke’s their fingers twisting together as Lexa’s other arm snakes up to Clarke’s face and cups her cheeks in her hand, pulling her into their first kiss in weeks. Pulling her in to the first of what will undoubtedly become their last. 

Clarke melts in Lexa’s hold, allowing her soldier to drink her in as she turned to mush in arms and sank back into the mattress. She pulls Lexa down with her, her arms wrapping around Lexa’s neck and her leg finding purchase around the slight swell of her hips. She moans as Lexa’s tongue draws across the roof of her mouth, as her fingers slide from her cheeks to her jaw, fingertips grazing – just barely grazing – the sensitive skin behind her ears. 

Lexa arches her back, slides one leg up the mattress and along Clarke’s side. One hand leaves her face to press into the feather mattress and Clarke sinks deeper into the bed as Lexa’s lips trail down her chin and neck. 

“I'm getting married tomorrow,” Clarke tries, not sure what part of her is speaking when her body is quivering with desire as Lexa’s lips reach the hem of her nightgown. 

Lexa says, “I know.” 

Clarke can feel the imprint of Lexa’s fingers as the ruffle her nightgown up over her thighs and she gasps inwardly when her fingers press like searing iron into her skin. Her fingerprints brand her thighs, marking her as Lexa’s and Clarke is drowning in bliss, her vision spinning as the scent and touch of Lexa overwhelms her every sense. 

She tangles her fingers in Lexa’s hair and pulls her away from the kisses she’s planting on her belly, back up to her lips so Clarke can taste her again and this time it’s Lexa who moans into the kiss, her hands gliding up under Clarke’s nightgown and over her breasts. Clarke pulls away from the kiss then and rips her nightgown over her head, throwing it into the darkness of the room as Lexa’s mouth wraps around her perking nipples, her tongue lapping over the sensitive skin in lazy twists. 

Never one to leave her wanting, Lexa’s tongue draws across her chest to her other, waiting breast, her hands sliding up to cup the first in her calloused hands. Clarke sucks in a breath, her head tipping towards the sky at the touch. Then, with a formed resolve, she reaches for the buttons of Lexa’s tunic and pulls at the uniform, hungry fingers searching for the form that Lexa hides behind black fabric and boiled leather. 

She manages to loosen the tunic and as the fabric begins to shift on Lexa’s shoulders, her lover pulls away from Clarke to yank the shirt over her head and toss it into the void with Clarke’s nightgown. Gracefully, she moves back into Clarke, their skin pressing against one another in hot flashes as Lexa takes her lips into her own again and guides them down onto the feather bed. 

Lexa leaves a trail of hot, sloppy kisses down her neck and sternum, lingering just below her belly button to kiss along her hips, down her thighs and then back up again. Clarke whines as Lexa’s lips drag up her skin, leaving a trail of fire behind her that pricks the hairs on the back of Clarke’s neck into standing on end. 

“Shh,” Lexa breathes, bringing her lips so close to Clarke’s ear that her breath tickles the skin. She nips at her earlobe, her tongue licking the sensitive skin and making Clarke shudder. “You got to be patient, Clarke.” 

“No patience,” Clarke breathes back. “Lexa, I need—” 

“Shh,” She breathes again. “Be patient. Just this once.” 

Clarke wiggles with displeasure and impatience, but she doesn’t need Lexa to say what it is she’s really asking out loud because, in the end, Clarke it wants it too. “Take me,” She says as she wraps her arms around Lexa’s neck and pulls them into a long and impassioned kiss that breaks only when Lexa pulls away to smoke crookedly and nod at Clarke’s words. 

Lexa has never taken her like this, slow and deliberate, but even as Lexa takes the time to map out every inch of her skin there’s an urgency between them; a desperation to memorize every second of this moment and sear into memory for as long as they may live. For Clarke, she memorizes each of Lexa’s fingers, each ridge of calluses and scars, each twitch and twirl of her joints as they dance across her skin. She memorizes the feeling of Lexa’s lips, the fullness of them and the way they press into her with delicate, carefully placed precision, careful not to miss even the smallest piece of Clarke that she has to give. She memorizes Lexa’s hair dragging down her side and the feeling of her trouser clad knees pressed into her hips. The little breaths she takes as she inches her way down Clarke’s body. The little hesitations of her fingers before she trails to a new part of her. 

Clarke drinks it all in, lets herself feel everything, and Lexa does the same atop her. 

“Lexa,” she moans as her fingers scrape along Lexa’s back and tangle in her hair as she travels south down Clarke’s form. Her impatience is winning out and she doesn’t know how much more teasing she can handle. 

But Lexa, confident and careful as always, raises her eyes to look at Clarke and smiles something seductive and controlled. “Almost,” she promises and Clarke nods eagerly as Lexa’s lips return to her hips. 

She throws her head back into the pillows, moaning Lexa’s name again as her peppered kisses trail painfully slow down her skin. Lexa again repeats her promise, this time breathing the words on Clarke’s skin and causing a prickle to swarm up her body and leave her nipples perking and hard so as Clarke finds herself torn between wanting Lexa’s attention to return to her breasts or continue on their path downward, to where she’s dripping wet and aching with desperation. 

Lexa’s hands begin to move across Clarke with purpose and drive, mapping the terrain of Clarke’s body like land meant to be conquered. It makes Clarke reward her efforts with moans and hisses, sighs and gasps, the occasional taper to a whine as she twists and writhes beneath Lexa’s touch. And Clarke’s hands aren’t idle either. Her nails drag along the surface of Lexa’s broad, muscular back; fingers slip into the tangles of her hair and around her shoulders, down to cup her breasts and tease her nipples into stiff peaks. 

It takes what might equate to a minute for Lexa’s lips to finally reach its long-awaited destination, but the wait feels like eons. Each little kiss pressing like a hot iron into her skin and lingering until her nerves go numb. She’s so sensitive now, so full of aching and need she isn’t even sure she can handle the sensation of Lexa finally kissing her clit, but when she does – when Lexa’s tongue slides between the wet folds that had waited for so long to be touched again – Clarke feels herself bursting from pleasure. 

She throws her arms over face and bites down on her forearm, a muffled, pleasured scream erupting like a growl from within her. Lexa’s hands travel across Clarke, pinning her down as her tongue dances between her thighs, keeping her pinned to bed as she twists and writhes at Lexa’s touch. She’s been so desperate, waited so long, that every flick of her tongue and graze of her fingers is like a volcano erupting on her skin. 

Clarke gnaws on her cheeks, trying to contain herself as Lexa’s tongue takes on new rhythm and her nails dig into her hips with an almost territorial claim. Lexa, buried between her thighs, is enjoying every second Clarke’s breathy gasps and needy moans. It fuels her. And each time Clarke thinks she can’t possibly find a rhythm more stimulating than the last, she does. 

She’s panting and sweaty and desperately trying keep herself contained and quiet, but Lexa’s touch is too searing, her tongue to skilled to ignore. Lexa’s fingers kneed into her hips and she pulls Clarke closer to her lips, her tongue drawing lazy circles all the while. Clarke moans with reprieve into the new sensation of Lexa touch, sucking in a sharp breath from behind her forearms that still cover her face. 

Lexa brings her closer to orgasm with a twist of her tongue and Clarke’s hands fly to the mattress, gripping at the sheets as she gasps for air between breathy moans and airy calls of Lexa’s name. She close now. So close she can’t stand it and she managed to breath out a single command, “Two,” just loud enough for Lexa to hear her. 

There’s a pause as Lexa works out what Clarke is asking, but then Lexa’s hand snakes lazily down her hip and between her thighs, two fingers curling into her like a corkscrew while Lexa’s tongue continues to dance over the bundle of nerves between her thighs. 

It takes her no time at all to find the stroke that Clarke likes the best; an experimental thrust, a curious curl and twist of her fingers, and Lexa unlocks a new wave of whimpers from Clarke beneath her. Curling her fingers just right, hooking them forward, and pressing against her in the most pleasurable way Clarke could ever dream. She does this to her again and again. Until Clarke is certain she is clutching hard around Lexa's fingers and her orgasm finally, _finally,_ teeters over the edge. 

A silent scream erupts from within her, her mouth opening in a distinct “oh’ and she presses her arms over her face and shivers delightfully beneath her lover as she’s brought to the highest of highs and slowly back down. Lexa cares for her the entire trip, easing her strokes and slowing her pace, pumping just enough to keep her stimulated through the last shiver down her spine. And when it’s over, Lexa’s eyes, cast in wreaths of gold from the embers of flame in the heart, look deep into Clarke’s own. As if all the words unspoken these past few weeks are pouring into her very soul. 

They fall in around each other; Lexa lays in her feather bed and Clarke runs her fingers through her wild and unruly hair; lets her fingers tangle in the small braids that cascade down the side of her head and lay upon her shoulders, draws lazy circles on her Kinglaive brand for the last time as an unmarried woman. 

In the low candle light, stripped of her war paint, her iron and her steel, Lexa is an entirely different person. She’s soft, and light and honest and.... and vulnerable. It’s like her walls crashed to the floor with her chainmail and she has no intention of putting them back up. She lets Clarke’s fingers run down her scarred features, the apple of her cheek, the strong lines of her jaw, down her neck and breasts, nipples perking from the sensation of the touch. 

It feels strange, knowing that tomorrow she will share her bed with another. Tomorrow this – this thing she has with Lexa – will no longer exist. A distant memory of a life she will never again know. She hates thinking about it and she buries her face in Lexa’s chest at the thought. 

“This was a bad idea,” Lexa whispers as Clarke’s fingers trace the dip of her torso, the gentle swell of her hips. She says the words but her voice betrays her attempted resistance. Maybe if she used the voice Clarke had known first – her commanding voice with that unmistakably powerful tone – maybe then, Clarke would have believed her. But she doesn’t use that voice. She uses the voice reserved just for her; a voice that’s delicate and purposeful and barely registers as more than a whisper. “I let my impulses get the better of me. I’m sorry, Clarke.” 

“This was an excellent idea,” Clarke corrects. “The best.” And it is. She’s wanted Lexa for what feels like ages and she doesn’t know when – or if – she will ever get to experience this again. To say that this time they have, this rare moment, is a mistake? Clarke refuses to see it as such. 

When Lexa is like this, when her armor – both literal and figurative – are cast aside, Clarke feels like the luckiest woman in the realm. No one could have convinced her that Lexa was this giving, this tender. No one could have prepared her for the way her brutal honesty and sharp allegiance to the King could become so evanescent, so benign; that her core traits could become little more than remnants in Clarke’s presence. When she’s with Lexa like this, feeling seen and heard and loved, she almost forgets that her future lies with a man who cannot even begin to compare to the woman before her now. 

“I could be executed,” Lexa says in a voice entirely too nonchalant for the severity of the words themselves. “You could be executed.” 

“Only if we get caught,” Clarke whispers back. 

“Are you suggesting that we just... not get caught? Clarke, this is the King’s castle, his eyes are everywhere.” 

They hadn’t gotten caught yet, and that was saying something because Clarke finds it very difficult to keep her lips sealed shut when Lexa is between her thighs. 

Clarke nestles into Lexa with a shake of her head. She really doesn’t want to talk about her future right now. She just wants to be here, in this moment, with Lexa. “Let’s not talk about that now. I don’t want to miss this.” 

Lexa plants a kiss upon the crown of Clarke’s head and she feels her fingers stroke her hair. “Very well, my queen,” she says. “Another time then.” 

“I’m not your queen,” Clarke complains. 

“You are a queen to me,” Lexa says, stroking Clarke’s hair. “Whether you are married to a King or not.” 

But tomorrow.... 

Tomorrow she will be, and this... 

This will all be gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> come chat with me at kiintsugi.tumblr.com


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